"I thought this morning we should get in to-night," replied the passenger, as he stepped inside of the caboose. "May I borrow a coal of fire from the stove, doctor?"
"Certain, if you can get one; but the fire is about out. You will find some matches in the tin box on your right," added the steward.
"I like to light my pipe in the old-fashioned way when I can. I don't mean to begin to suck in brimstone just yet," continued Wallbridge, as he succeeded in finding a coal, and soon had his pipe in working order. "What were you doing with that book, doctor? Do you keep a log of the voyage?"
"Well, ya-as," drawled the steward. "I keep a log of this voyage, and a log of the voyage of life. I've kept a diary ever since I taught school; and that's seven years ago, come winter."
"It must be worth reading. I should like to look it over, if we have to stay out here another day. I suppose you have seen a good deal of the world, if you have been to sea many years."
"No; I haven't seen much of the world. I never went but one voyage before this, and that was in a coaster, from New York to Bangor. The diary is only for my own reading, and I wouldn't let anybody look at it for all the world," answered Harvey Barth, with an even more painful cough than usual.
"Then you are not a great traveller," added Wallbridge, puffing away at his pipe, as he watched the sun sinking to his rest beyond the western waves.
"Bless you! no. I was brought up on a farm in York State. I used to keep school winters till the folks in our town began to think they must have a more dandified chap than I am."
"Where did you learn to cook, if you were a schoolmaster?"
"Well you see I was an only son, and my mother died when I was but sixteen. Father and I kept house together till he died, and I used to do about all the cooking. I had an idea then that I could do it pretty well, too," replied Harvey, with a sickly smile. "The old man got to drinking rather too much, and lost all he had and all I had, too. My health wasn't very good; I had a bad cough and night sweats. I was an orphan at twenty-four, and I thought I'd go to New York city, and take a little voyage on the salt water. I had about a hundred dollars I earned after the old man died; but a fellow in the city got it all away from me;" and Harvey hung his head, as though this was not a pleasant experience to remember.