"Perhaps; he has a right to do so, if he pleases. I did think at first that he bought them for himself, but of course I was mistaken. However, whatever he does with them, he buys them and pays for them: that's enough for me. You could give as good a reason for liking him. He was kind to you when you were ill."
"Oh, yes! brought me jellies and things"--
"And you ate them and relished them," said Dan, laughing.
"I didn't know that he had brought them, or I wouldn't have touched them. I remember in one of our coasting-trips we had a passenger on board who wrote for newspapers, and who was said to be a very clever man. Certainly he talked like one. He used to talk to me, as much perhaps because I was a good listener, as for any other reason. Well, a favorite subject with him was what he called magnetic sympathy. He would just have suited you, Dan! He said that the natural magnetism which makes persons like or dislike one another, without apparent reason, is never wrongly directed."
"A kind of instinct," remarked Dan reflectively.
"He said, too, that as there are certain things in chemicals that won't mix, being opposed in their natures, so there are persons who have natural antipathies"--
"And won't mix--like you and Mr. Fewster," interpolated Dan.
"Just so. Besides that, I have a good many little reasons for not liking Mr. Fewster.
"Firstly," prompted Dan.
"He never looks me in the face."