Rudyard Kipling

"Captains Courageous" Rudyard Kipling

The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the North Atlantic fog, as thebig liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the fishing-fleet."That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a frieze overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He's too fresh."A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between bites: "I know derbreed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you should imbort ropes' ends free under yourdariff.""Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied than anything," a manfrom New York drawled, as he lay at full length along the cushions under the wet skylight."They've dragged him around from hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking tohis mother this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. He'sgoing to Europe to finish his education.""Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up in a corner. "That boygets two hundred a month pocket-money, he told me. He isn't sixteen either.""Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German."Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at San Diego, the old manhas; another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen railroads, half the lumber on the Pacificslope, and lets his wife spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The West don'tsuit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves, trying to find outwhat'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, andround again. He isn't much more than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished inEurope he'll be a holy terror.""What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" said a voice from thefrieze ulster."Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. He'll find out hiserror a few years from now. 'Pity, because there's a heap of good in the boy if you could getat it.""Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German