thirty hours."

I thought slowly. (I was distracted now by the yelping of a number
of dogs.) "Am I eligible for solid food?" I asked.

"Thanks to me," he said. "Even now the mutton is boiling."

"Yes," I said with assurance; "I could eat some mutton."

"But," said he with a momentary hesitation, "you know I'm dying to hear
of how you came to be alone in that boat. Damn that howling!"
I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes.

He suddenly left the cabin, and I heard him in violent controversy
with some one, who seemed to me to talk gibberish in response to him.
The matter sounded as though it ended in blows, but in that I thought
my ears were mistaken. Then he shouted at the dogs, and returned to
the cabin.

"Well?" said he in the doorway. "You were just beginning to tell me."

I told him my name, Edward Prendick, and how I had taken to Natural
History as a relief from the dulness of my comfortable independence.

He seemed interested in this. "I've done some science myself. I did
my Biology at University College,--getting out the ovary of the earthworm
and the radula of the snail, and all that. Lord! It's ten years ago.
But go on! go on! tell me about the boat."

He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story,