“I’m sure you are right,” he admitted.  “I did not know this coast, and foolishly imagined the old Pacific, in which I have sported and played since babyhood, was my friend wherever I found it.”

“I hope you are feeling better and stronger this evening,” said Mr. Merrick.  “We expected you to join us at dinner.”

“I—­I seldom dine in public,” he explained, flushing slightly.  “My bill-of-fare is very limited, you know, owing to my—­my condition; and so I carry my food-tablets around with me, wherever I go, and eat them in my own room.”

“Food-tablets!” cried Patsy, horrified.

“Yes.  They are really wafers—­very harmless—­and I am permitted to eat nothing else.”

“No wonder your stomach is bad and you’re a living skeleton!” asserted the girl, with scorn.

“My dear,” said Uncle John, gently chiding her, “we must give Mr. Jones the credit for knowing what is best for him.”

“Not me, sir!” protested the boy, in haste.  “I’m very ignorant about—­about health, and medicine and the like.  But in New York I consulted a famous doctor, and he told me what to do.”

“That’s right,” nodded the old gentleman, who had never been ill in his life.  “Always take the advice of a doctor, listen to the advice of a lawyer, and refuse the advise of a banker.  That’s worldly wisdom.”

“Were you ill when you left your home?” inquired Mrs. Montrose, looking at the young man with motherly sympathy.

“Not when I left the island,” he said.  “I was pretty well up to that time.  But during the long ocean voyage I was terribly sick, and by the time we got to San Francisco my stomach was a wreck.  Then I tried to eat the rich food at your restaurants and hotels—­we live very plainly in Sangoa, you know—­and by the time I got to New York I was a confirmed dyspeptic and suffering tortures.  Everything I ate disagreed with me.  So I went to a great specialist, who has invented these food tablets for cases just like mine, and he ordered me to eat nothing else.”

“And are you better?” asked Maud.

He hesitated.

“Sometimes I imagine I am.  I do not suffer so much pain, but I—­I seem to grow weaker all the time.”

“No wonder!” cried Patsy.  “If you starve yourself you can’t grow strong.”

He looked at her with an expression of surprise.  Then he asked abruptly: 

“What would you advise me to do, Miss Doyle?”

A chorus of laughter greeted this question.  Patsy flushed a trifle but covered her confusion by demanding:  “Would you follow my advice?”

He made a little grimace.  There was humor in the boy, despite his dyspepsia.

“I understand there is a law forbidding suicide,” he replied.  “But I asked your advice in an attempt to discover what you thought of my absurd condition.  Now that you call my attention to it, I believe I am starving myself.  I need stronger and more nourishing food; and yet the best specialist in your progressive country has regulated my diet.”