“Are you better?” said the man.
“Yes, much better,” answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
“Then go on board.”
“Go where?” said the apprentice, in amazement.
“Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for provisions? And here comes the man with them.”
Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any point; he embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left, with which he could buy some little souvenir for Zénaïde, so that his trip to Nantes would not be thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted with a poor enough appetite, and sat at the end of the boat, wrapped in thought. He dreamily recalled books that he had read—tales of strange adventures on the sea; but why did a certain old volume of Robinson Crusoe persistently come before him? He saw the rubbed and yellowed page, the vignette of Robinson in his hammock surrounded by drunken sailors, and above it the inscription, “And in a night of debauch I forgot all my good resolutions.”
He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and by a pair of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was annoyed by this gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
“Drink with me, captain!” he said.
The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, “Let him alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled things for him; he thought you had more money than you ought to have!”
Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his money was his own, that it had been given him by———. Here he stopped, remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention her name. “But,” he continued, “I can have more money when I wish it, and I am going to buy a wedding present for Zénaïde.”