beautiful schooner as she is. We are out for a holiday. Let the wind and
the sea take a holiday too."

Pronouncing those words of remonstrance, a slim, nimble, curly-headed
young gentleman joined Richard Turlington on deck, with his clothes
under his arm, his towels in his hand, and nothing on him but the
night-gown in which he had stepped out of his bed.

"Launcelot Linzie, you have been received on board my vessel in the
capacity of medical attendant on Miss Natalie Graybrooke, at her
father's request. Keep your place, if you please. When I want your
advice, I'll ask you for it." Answering in those terms, the elder man
fixed his colorless gray eyes on the younger with an expression which
added plainly, "There won't be room enough in this schooner much longer
for me and for you."

Launcelot Linzie had his reasons (apparently) for declining to let his
host offend him on any terms whatever.

"Thank you!" he rejoined, in a tone of satirical good humor. "It isn't
easy to keep my place on board your vessel. I can't help presuming
to enjoy myself as if I was the owner. The life is such a new one--to
_me!_ It's so delightfully easy, for instance, to wash yourself here.
On shore it's a complicated question of jugs and basins and tubs; one is
always in danger of breaking something, or spoiling something. Here you
have only to jump out of bed, to run up on deck, and to do this!"

He turned, and scampered to the bows of the vessel. In one instant he
was out of his night-gown, in another he was on the bulwark, in a third
he was gamboling luxuriously in sixty fathoms of salt-water.