“Well, so he is. But I say, don’t you worry about asking questions. Couldn’t you drink a cup of tea?”
“I don’t know; I dare say I could. Yes, I should like one. But never mind about that now. I don’t quite understand why Captain Glossop should send me on board this schooner. This is not the Liverpool Hospital Ship, is it?”
“Oh no.”
“How many sick people have you got on board?”
“None at all,” said the lad, “now you are getting well.”
Fitz lay looking at the speaker wistfully. There was something about his frank face and manner that he liked.
“I don’t understand,” he said sadly. “It’s all a puzzle, and I suppose it is all as you say through being so ill.”
“Yes, of course. That’s it, old chap. I say, you don’t mind me calling you ‘old chap,’ do you?”
“Well, no,” said Fitz, smiling sadly. “You mean it kindly, I suppose.”
“Well, I want to be kind to you, seeing how bad you’ve been. I thought one day you were going to Davy Jones’s locker, as the sailors call it.”