Saunders happened to overhear the
remark, for he was aiding Ann Sidley in the boat, and he took up the
subject where it was left by the other, in a little aside with his
companion.
"It is a misfortune that Mr. Dodge is not here to question the gentleman,"
said the steward to his assistant, "and then we might hear more of his
adwentures, which, I make no doubt, have been werry pathetic and
romantical. Mr. Dodge is a genuine inquisitor, Mistress Ann; not such an
inquisitor as burns people and flays them in Spain, where I have been, but
such an inquisitor as torments people, and of whom we have lots
in America."
"Let the poor man rest in peace," said Nanny, sighing. "He's gone to his
great account, steward; and I fear we shall none of us make as good a
figure as we might at the final settling. Besides Miss Eve, I never knew a
mortal that wasn't more or less a sinner."
"So they all say; and I must allow that my experience leans to the wicked
side of the question. Captain Truck, now, was a worthy man; but he had his
faults, as well as Toast. In the first place he would swear when things
took him aback; and then, he had no prewarication about speaking his mind
of a fellow-creature, if the coffee happened to be thick, or the poultry
didn't take fat kindly. I've known him box the compass with oaths if the
ship was got in irons.
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