bearings."

Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his
state-room and read "Caliban" aloud. He was delighted. It was a
primitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he
understood thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment
and criticism. When I finished, he had me read it over a second
time, and a third. We fell into discussion--philosophy, science,
evolution, religion. He betrayed the inaccuracies of the self-read
man, and, it must be granted, the sureness and directness of the
primitive mind. The very simplicity of his reasoning was its
strength, and his materialism was far more compelling than the
subtly complex materialism of Charley Furuseth. Not that I--a
confirmed and, as Furuseth phrased it, a temperamental idealist--
was to be compelled; but that Wolf Larsen stormed the last
strongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, while
not accorded conviction.

Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I became
restless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down the
companion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go
about my duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him:

"Cooky, you've got to hustle to-night. I'm busy with Hump, and
you'll do the best you can without him."

And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat at
table with the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge
waited on us and washed the dishes afterward--a whim, a Caliban-
mood of Wolf Larsen's, and one I foresaw would bring me trouble.