"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS"

A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS

by Rudyard Kipling




CHAPTER I

The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the
North Atlantic fog, as the big 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 der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you
you should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff."

"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied
than anything," a man from 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 to his mother this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she
don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finish his
education."