Dodge, and a more active inquirer never put foot in a ship, though I did
not know the use he put his information to before. It is all in the way of
trade, I find."
"Mr. Dodge claims to belong to a profession, captain, and is quite above
trade. He tells me many things have occurred on board this ship, since we
sailed, that will make very eligible paragraphs."
"The d---- he does!--I should like particularly well, Mr. Dodge, to know
what you will find to say concerning this category in which the Montauk
is placed."
"Oh! captain, no fear of me, when you are concerned. You know I am a
friend, and you have no cause to apprehend any thing; though I'll not
answer for everybody else on board; for there are passengers in this ship
to whom I have decided antipathies, and whose deportment meets with my
unqualified disapprobation."
"And you intend to paragraph them?"
Mr. Dodge was now swelling with the conceit of a vulgar and inflated man,
who not only fancies himself in possession of a power that others dread,
but who was so far blinded to his own qualities as to think his opinion of
importance to those whom he felt, in the minutest fibre of his envious and
malignant system, to be in every essential his superiors. He did not dare
express all his rancour, while he was unequal to suppressing it entirely.
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