"I think, sir," I said, addressing him with all the respectfulness I could infuse into my voice, "that the uneasiness of which you complain would leave you if you would lie down. The eye gets strained by staring through a port-hole, and that eternal horizon yonder really grows a kind of craze in one's head, if watched too long."
"You are quite right, sir," he replied, making me another bow; and, addressing his daughter, "This gentleman sympathizes with the peculiar inspirations of what I may call monotonous nature."
He looked at her with extraordinary and painful earnestness. Evidently, some recollection had leaped into his mind and quitted him immediately, leaving him bewildered by it.
He then said, in a most plaintive voice—
"I will lie down. Your shoulder, my love."
He stretched out his old trembling hand. I got up to help him, but he withdrew from me with an air of offended pride, and reared his figure to its full height.
"This is my daughter, sir," he exclaimed, with cold emphasis; and though I knew he was not accountable for his behaviour, I shrunk back, feeling more completely snubbed than ever I remember being in my life.
With her assistance he got into the bunk, and lay there quite still.
She drew close to me, and obliged me to share the seat she made of the box which had contained the steward's linen.
"You are not angry with him?" she whispered.