"Very well," I said, "I will leave you, and what's more to the point, I'll make you a bet you'll be sorry for this. I came to tell you some news about your schooner that would have pleased you, but I'll see you dead before you shall hear it now."
So saying, I swung on my heel and left the house.
It would have been a bad business for any man who might have crossed me that night, for I was in about as vile a temper as it would be possible to be. So, unable to trust myself among men, I made for the hill-side, and started walking about the back of the island.
I must have wandered all night, for breakfast-time discovered me not more than a hundred yards from the Albino's door. With a yearning for some one to impart my sorrows to, I made towards it, and entered in time to catch my friend at his meal. His keen eyes saw in an instant that something was wrong.
"You've been quarrelling with Juanita," he began. "Don't deny it; I can see it in your face. Well, you're a bigger fool than I figured you. What was it about?"
When I told him, he gave me a glance full of such withering contempt that I almost quailed before it.
"I thought it was a man I was helping; as I live, it's only a school-girl! Did she forget to say he was a pretty boy, and to kiss him, and to chuck him under the chin then?"
His raillery was more than I could stand, so being unwilling to quarrel with him too, I got up to go. But this by no means suited him.
"Sit down," he snapped, pointing with a long fore-finger to the kerosene case which did duty for a chair; "sit down and tell me what you propose to do now; or, what's more to the point, I'll tell you what you shall do."
"What?"