I can feel for them." Someone pushed a chair gently against Eliph's legs, in gentle invitation for him to be seated, and he took the chair, and laid his package across his knees.

Those who had drawn away from him now gathered closer, and all gazed at him with interest.

Miss Sally alone remained at the other end of the room.
"Well, I never expected to live to see a man that had been shipwrecked," said Mrs.Weaver, "let alone shipwrecked on a desert island--an' a book agent at that!" Eliph' smiled indulgently.
"I wasn't a book agent in them days," he said; "it was that made me a book agent.

If I hadn't been shipwrecked on that island I wouldn't be here now with this book on my knees." Mrs.Weaver's face flushed.
"I'm sure I ask you to excuse me," she exclaimed.

"I don't know what I was thinkin' of not to ask to take your package.