along the way no primrose dallyings with black-and-tan Killeney Boys and
Welsh nondescripts. And did not Biddy trace to Erin, mother and star of
the breed, through a long descendant out of Breda Mixer, herself an
ancestress of Breda Muddler? Nor could be omitted from the purple record
the later ancestress, Moya Doolen.

So Jerry knew the ecstasy of loving and of being loved in the arms of his
love-god, although little he knew of such phrases as "king's son" and
"son of kings," save that they connoted love for him in the same way that
Lerumie's hissing noises connoted hate. One thing Jerry knew without
knowing that he knew, namely, that in the few hours he had been with
Skipper he loved him more than he had loved Derby and Bob, who, with the
exception of Mister Haggin, were the only other white-gods he had ever
known. He was not conscious of this. He merely loved, merely acted on
the prompting of his heart, or head, or whatever organic or anatomical
part of him that developed the mysterious, delicious, and insatiable
hunger called "love."

Skipper went below. He went all unheeding of Jerry, who padded softly at
his heels until the companionway was reached. Skipper was unheeding of
Jerry because of the fever that wrenched his flesh and chilled his bones,
that made his head seem to swell monstrously, that glazed the world to
his swimming eyes and made him walk feebly and totteringly like a drunken
man or a man very aged. And Jerry sensed that something was wrong with
Skipper.

Skipper, beginning the babblings of delirium which alternated with silent
moments of control in order to get below and under blankets, descended
the ladder-like stairs, and Jerry, all-yearning, controlled himself in
silence and watched the slow descent with the hope that when Skipper