The child opened his eyes and smiled.
“You feel quite well, now, don’t you, my boy?”
“I’m never quite well,” answered Arthur. “The doctor says I’m very delicate, and steamers always make me ill.”
“What a shame,” said Mr. Kalisch. “There’s lots of fun on a steamer, too, for a jolly boy. There’s shuffle board, and hide and seek, and animals.”
“What is animals?”
“I’ll tell you all about it after lunch. In the meantime, you’re going to take a fine nap and when you wake up you will be feeling like a fighting cock, and then we’ll play the game of animals. Perhaps the young ladies will join in, and Feargus and the others. Do you ever take medicine?”
“Lots of it,” replied Arthur proudly.
“Here is a pill. It’s not a bit nasty. These ladies have all taken the same kind of pill. It cured them of seasickness.”
“I don’t mind medicine,” said Arthur. “I’m quite used to it, I have to take so much. What will this do?”
“It will make you well. You will sleep for an hour and then you will wake up hungry and happy, and the first thing you’ll say when you come on deck will be ‘Telemac,’—that’s my name, you know,—‘what about animals?’”