The two became good friends as the voyage progressed. Christobal was
exceedingly well informed, and delighted in a thoughtful listener like
Elsie. Isobel, tiring at times of the Count, would join in their
conversation, and display a spasmodic interest in the topics they
discussed. There were only six other passengers, a Baptist missionary
and his wife, three mining engineers, and an English globe-trotter, a
singular being who appeared to have roamed the entire earth, but whose
experiences were summed up in two words--every place he had seen was
either "Fair" or "Rotten."
Even Isobel failed to draw him further, and she said one day, in a
temper, after a spirited attempt to extract some of his stored
impressions: "The man reminds me of one of those dummy books you see
occasionally, bound in calf and labeled 'Gazetteer of the World.' When
you try to open a volume you find that it is made of wood."
So they nicknamed him "Mr. Wood," and Elsie once inadvertently
addressed him by the name.
"What do you think of the weather, Mr. Wood?" she asked him at
breakfast.
He chanced to notice that she was speaking to him.
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