Neither wit nor whisky could detain him then. Yet he was a
man who had faced undaunted hurricane and typhoon, and would
not have hesitated to fight a dozen unarmed niggers with
nothing but a revolver to help him. Sometimes Mrs. Nichols
would send her daughter, a pale-faced, sullen child of seven,
to the hotel.
"Mother wants you," she said, in a whining tone.
"Very well, my dear," said Captain Nichols.
He rose to his feet at once, and accompanied his daughter
along the road. I suppose it was a very pretty example of the
triumph of spirit over matter, and so my digression has at
least the advantage of a moral.
Chapter XLVII
I have tried to put some connection into the various things
Captain Nichols told me about Strickland, and I here set them
down in the best order I can. They made one another's
acquaintance during the latter part of the winter following my
last meeting with Strickland in Paris. How he had passed the
intervening months I do not know, but life must have been very
hard, for Captain Nichols saw him first in the Asile de Nuit.
There was a strike at Marseilles at the time, and Strickland,
having come to the end of his resources, had apparently found
it impossible to earn the small sum he needed to keep body and
soul together.
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