"But," said Cynthia, "what have I to do with all this?"
Her father laughed. "This young fellow didn't come to me of his own accord. I sent for him. And I must tell you that, contrary to my expectations, I was charmed with him. If I had had a son I should wish him to be just like this youngster."
"Bully stories! But he takes so much pains that his output is small."
"Well," said she, "what did you tell him?"
"As a small boy," said her father, "he was very delicate; but now he's as sound as a bell and he looks as strong as an elk."
Cynthia rose to her feet, trembling slightly.
"What was the matter with him--when he was delicate?"
She became as it were taller--and vivid with beauty.
Cynthia put her hands on her father's shoulders.
"It's all right," she said; "his family has come into quite a lot of money. He doesn't know it yet. They're going to give him enough to marry on. You still think he ought to marry--don't you?"
Cynthia flew out of the room, across the hall, and into the library.
The animals went in two by two. Hurrah! Hurrah!
Given Bower for a last name, the boys are bound to call you "Right" or "Left." They called me "Right" because I usually held it, one way or another. I was shot with luck. No matter what happened, it always worked out to my advantage. All inside of six months, for instance, the mate fell overboard and I got his job; the skipper got drunk after weathering a cyclone and ran the old _Boldero_ aground in "lily-pad" weather--and I got his. Then the owner called me in and said: "Captain Bower, what do you know about Noah's Ark?" And I said: "Only that 'the animals went in two by two. Hurrah! Hurrah!'" And the owner said: "But how did he feed 'em--specially the meat-eaters?" And I said: "He got hold of a Hindu who had his arm torn off by a black panther and who now looks after the same at the Calcutta Zoo--and he put it up to him."
"The Bible doesn't say so," said the owner.
"Everything the Bible says is true," said I. "But there're heaps of true sayings, you know, that aren't in it at all."
"Well," says the owner, "you slip out to yon Zoo and you put it up to yon one-armed Hindu that a white Noah named Bower has been ordered to carry pairs of all the Indian fauna from Singapore to Sydney; and you tell him to shake his black panther and 'come along with.'"