“Well—well, it's kind of—kind of spotty, as you might say. There's spots when I get along fairly smooth and others when—well, when it's pretty rough goin'. I've had four hard spots since Al went away, but there's two that was the hardest. One was along Christmas and New Year time; you know I 'most generally had one of my—er—spells along about then. And t'other is just now; I mean since we got word about—about Al. I don't suppose likely you surmised it, Cap'n, but—but I'd come to think a lot of that boy—yes, I had. Seems funny to you, I don't doubt, but it's so. And since the word come, you know—I—I—well, I've had some fight, some fight. I—I don't cal'late I've slept more'n four hours in the last four nights—not more'n that, no. Walkin' helps me most, seems so. Last night I walked to West Orham.”
“To West Orham! You WALKED there? Last NIGHT?”
“Um-hm. Long's I can keep walkin' I—I seem to part way forget—to forget the stuff, you know. When I'm alone in my room I go 'most crazy—pretty nigh loony. . . . But there! I don't know why I got to talkin' like this to you, Cap'n Lote. You've got your troubles and—”
“Hold on, Labe. Does Rachel know about your fight?”
“No. No, no. Course she must notice how long I've been—been straight, but I haven't told her. I want to be sure I'm goin' to win before I tell her. She's been disappointed times enough before, poor woman. . . . There, Cap'n Lote, don't let's talk about it any more. Please don't get the notion that I'm askin' for pity or anything like that. And don't think I'm comparin' what I call my fight to the real one like Al's. There's nothin' much heroic about me, eh? No, no, I guess not. Tell that to look at me, eh?”
Captain Zelotes rose and laid his big hand on his bookkeeper's shoulder.
“Don't you believe it, Labe,” he said. “I'm proud of you. . . . And, I declare, I'm ashamed of myself. . . . Humph! . . . Well, to-night you come home with me and have supper at the house.”
“Now, now, Cap'n Lote—”
“You do as I tell you. After supper, if there's any walkin' to be done—if you take a notion to frog it to Orham or San Francisco or somewheres—maybe I'll go with you. Walkin' may be good for my fight, too; you can't tell till you try. . . . There, don't argue, Labe. I'm skipper of this craft yet and you'll obey my orders; d'you hear?”
The day following the receipt of the fateful telegram the captain wrote a brief note to Fletcher Fosdick. A day or two later he received a reply. Fosdick's letter was kindly and deeply sympathetic. He had been greatly shocked and grieved by the news.