The captain seemed to be laboring under a nervous strain, unusual in one so stolid and self-possessed.
The door closed, the captain moved back a cushion, dropped into a corner of the sofa, and sat looking at the doctor, with legs apart, his open palms resting on his knees.
"I got bad news, doctor--awful bad news for everybody," as he spoke he reached into his pocket and produced a letter with a foreign postmark.
"You remember my son Bart, of course, don't ye, who left home some two years ago ?" he went on.
The doctor nodded.
"Well, he's dead." "Your son Bart dead!" cried the doctor, repeating his name in the surprise of the announcement.

"How do you know ?" "This letter came by to-day's mail.

It's from the consul at Rio.

Bart come in to see him dead broke and he helped him out.

He'd run away from the ship and was goin' up into the mines to work, so the consul wrote me.