I said: “It's a good argument. How does she like it?”
“Mrs. Mink,” he said, “is reflective but unconvinced. The extent to which she is unconvinced is alarming. I can't deny it.”
I left them the day after Thanksgiving, at San Juan in Porto Rico, and went back to Portate. Singular town, Portate. Singular man, Dr. Ulswater. Singular planet around which the _Violetta_ was setting out with its critical, exploring prow.
It was some two months after, when I received Dr. Ulswater's first letter. Altogether he sent me four letters. Letters! rather manuscripts, documents, written in his own mellow and tumultuous style. They made that wandering hearth and home of the _Violetta_ a vivid enough picture to my mind. I followed its course from sea to sea, from island to island, wishing myself aboard her. Here follow the documents.
CHAPTER V--FIRST DOCUMENT. DR. ULSWATER'S NARRATIVE: FIRST ADVENTURE
From the way in which Mrs. Mink collected you and me, it was clear that she had a knack, a genius, nay, even let us say, a tendency toward collecting people. In point of fact, no sooner were you gone than she collected a Professor of Logic.
His name was Simpson, Professor Simpson. It was at San Juan. Why did she collect him? Now you speak of it, I reckon it was for a sort of a breakwater to me. Gracious heavens! It wasn't for want of logic. Never! But it is just possible that she found me, at the time,--I suspected it--that she found me rather--shall I say?--overflowing, rather a deluge.
Professor Simpson was a man whose presence I should ordinarily have welcomed for the educational value of his company, but I didn't welcome him. He was small in person, dry of face, categorical in manner, testy in temper, Presbyterian in religion, pedantic in language, undoubtedly learned. But did he understand his function to be merely a breakwater to me? He did not. Let that pass for the present. Mrs. Mink collected him at San Juan, and we steamed away to Martinique. Here, one day, on or about the tenth of December, we lay in the roadstead of St. Pierre.
We were intending to go on that day, but about two-thirds of the _Violetta's_ crew were in St. Pierre on shore leave. Captain Jansen came aboard some time after noon, and finding the men had not returned, became excited, took all the boats, and the remainder of the crew, even down to the cook, to help him collect delinquent mariners the faster, and went ashore again. We four were left on the _Violetta_: Mrs. Mink, Norah, Professor Simpson, and I.