To-day we're going back together, ye and me." He was sparing of language.

He shut his mouth over the short sentences he had said, and that influence which always makes it more or less difficult for one man to oppose the will of another caused Caius to make his questions as few as possible.
Was it safe, he asked, to drive to Cloud Island that day?
The other looked at him from head to foot.

"Not safe," he said, "for women and childer; but for men"-- the word was lingered upon for a moment--"yes, safe enough." The innkeepers were too mindful of their manners as yet to disturb the colloquy with open interruption; but with every other sort of interruption they did disturb it, explaining by despairing gestures and direful shakings of the head that, should Caius go with this gentleman, he would be driving into the very jaws of death.
Nevertheless, after O'Shea's last words Caius had assented to the expedition, although he was uncertain whether the assent was wise or not.

He had the dissatisfaction of feeling that he had been ruled, dared, like a vain schoolboy, into the hasty consent.
"Now, if you are servant to Madame Le Maitre at The Cloud, how is it that you've never been seen on this island ?" It was the liveliest of the sisters who could no longer keep silence.
While Caius was packing his traps he was under the impression that O'Shea had replied that, in the first place, he had not lived long at The Cloud, and, in the second, visitors from The Cloud had not been so particularly welcome at the other islands.

His remarks on the last subject were delivered with brief sarcasm.