The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

56 tude. You will be laughed at and ridiculed. Would it not be better to make your first appearance in public on board a war-ship, among its officers, where all are gentlemen, and where you will be accorded that treatment that one gentleman receives from an- other? ” “Great!” I ejaculated. ‘“ Captain, I thank you again for the generous thought. Come along, Crusoe. Leave that goose for another time.” And so, half unwilling, but with his eyes shining with eagerness, the island- er accompanied us to the launch. CHAPTER XXVII. MORE TROUBLE IMPENDING. How shall I, with the feeble vocabu- lary at my command, describe the re- ception of Crusoe Donaldson on board the Vigilante, and the dinner that fol- lowed? It is easy enough to tell of the kill- ing of a wild goose. Everybody knows what a goose looks like alive or dead, and the way to kill one is—to kill it. It is also an easy matter to write a short description of a powerful man killing a bear with his hands. Any- body knows if the man has the muscu- lar power, it can be done. But to introduce before readers in language that will give a befitting por- trayal of the first meeting of a man twenty-four years of age with the ele- gance and luxury that surrounds the officers of a French battle-ship, 1s quite another matter. It is practically im- possible to paint the picture to do the subject justice. A painted rainbow sel- dom looks like a rainbow. My descrip- tion of the experience of the islander will, I know, be wofully inadequate. Probably the calmest of the lot was the islander himself. Yet from the moment he stepped from the boarding companion to the deck, and saw the line-up of officers to receive Captain Delatouche and his guests, the hand- some eyes showed an eager curiosity. THE ARGOSY. And this curiosity was not limited to Donaldson. It was mutual. Clad ina white fur that a society woman in New York would pay a fortune to possess, his tall, commanding figure attracted the attention of every man who saw him. I feared he would be so abashed that his manner would be clumsy, or even objectionable. It was neither. Of course, he knew nothing of those polite inclinations of the head, the delicate handclasp, the acknowledgment of the introductions. But he made no bad breaks. When all were on board, the captain, relaxing the discipline of a French cruiser, in- troduced Donaldson, giving a short history of his lonely life on Orsgov. As the men stepped forward one by one to greet him, the lonely islander received them as might a king receive noble visitors from a distant country. His dignity was magnificent. He spoke little. Then, when he did have something to say, he said it slow- ly, studying his words well, and the training of Mr. Donaldson, not used for fourteen years, rushed to his assist- ance like a flood. Ordway and I were commonplace. Nobody paid any attention particularly to us. The feeble, unimportant fact that we had spent weeks, some of them in almost a starving and raving condi- tion on an iceberg, amounted to noth- ing. Yet, so rejoiced were we that our protégé was making so excellent an impression, we forgot ourselves. One thing I noticed in particular,’ and this spoke well for the fact that Mr. Donaldson had not confined his teaching to reading and writing, but in- cluded deportment, probably foresee- ing some such occasion as this. This was that Donaldson, no matter how curiosity might be consuming him, never let his eyes rove from the person who was addressing him. All these greetings took some time. Among those who shook hands with the islander was an officer of marines. He was a very large and finely built CoOMmicbook CO