. . . I shall be perfectly truthful so far as the history
goes; but I warn you that at a certain point you won't like it, and
you'll go on to like it less. You and I have been friends, Roddy,
and you naturally suppose that I've come straight to you, as my first
friend, to be welcomed and to ask for counsel. But you suppose
wrong. I am come asking neither for advice, nor for a sympathy--
which I know I shan't get."
"My dear Jack--" I began to protest.
"Oh, be quiet," said he, "and let _me_ do the talking! I've had no
one to talk to, these five months around the Horn, but a Norwegian
skipper, a first mate of the same country, a fellow-passenger shipped
off as a dipsomaniac for a cure (we lost him somewhere in the worst
of it--I've an idea he let himself be swept overboard), and a mixed
crew that I helped to cure of _beri-beri_ at St. Helena. So I want
to do the talking, with your leave.
"--And I want to say this first, foremost, once and for all. I am
come _simply to tell you_. I understand the devil of a lot about
hatred by this time--more than you will ever begin to guess.
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