Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/21

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tical value. The captain of the "Duumvir" would not be amenable to bribery, nor might all the arts of persuasion induce him to return to New York harbour; and the unhappy passenger had to go wherever this brutal mariner went. It would be useless to offer a resignation; one cannot resign from a boat.

There are people who bear their pains with a better grace when they think of greater sufferings on the part of other people, and so, in a dentist's chair, they keep their minds upon hospitals; but seasickness is a human ill that does not profit by such alleviations. Ogle was aware that other people were as wretched as he; for not far from the head of his bed there was a locked door, which, upon occasion, permitted his room to form part of a suite, and from the other side of this door came vocal sounds of lamentation and rebellion; but whenever he heard them his own misery was automatically increased. Two prostrate ladies occupied the adjoining cabin, he became aware, and although one of them seemed to be helplessly silent, the other was but too frequently audible.

Naturally, he was resentful; and when she moaned aloud, "I will die! I will die!" as she often did, he felt no anxiety to avert the calamity she predicted.

"Do!" he muttered thickly. "Do die! Do!"