He went off to his bath, dressed hurriedly, dawdled a moment at the breakfast-table, where he found Peter discussing a cereal not without a certain solemn pleasure, and went above grappling with the thought that all this would mean a postponement of his call at the Carstairs house, and maybe something more serious still. The morning was sunny and crisp. He walked to the bow, briskly, by way of a constitutional, turned and started down again. As he did this, his eye fell upon a strange figure which had at first escaped him. Toward the stern of the Cypriani, near the wheel, a little runt of a boy hung over the rail, and made the air noxious with the relicts of a low-born cigar. He was an aged, cynical boy, with a phlegmatic mien and a face of the complexion and general appearance of a hickory-nut.
A little surprised by the sudden apparition, Varney came down the deck and dropped into a chair near him.
"Well, my lad! I'm happy to see you and your cigar again. But to what do we owe the pleasure of this call from you two old friends?"
The boy turned his back to the rail and faced him impassively. In the brilliant sunshine, he looked singularly worn and wise.
"I brung dem wires," he said courageously plying the cigar. "Any answer?"
"I'll see, after a while," said Varney, hastily lighting a pipe as counter-irritant. "So you're the telegraph boy, are you?"
"Nawser. Odjobbin' I do. Anythink as comes handy. They don't deliver no wires down here. I handles 'em sometimes for wut dere is in it."
"Oh! Well, I won't fail to see that there is something in it for you this time. And do you make much money odd-jobbing?"
"I git along awright. Summertimes I do. Wintertimes there ain't no odjobbin' much."
"How old are you, my boy?"