I had no difficulty in perceiving, from my companion's manner, that he believed some sudden shock had shaken my faculties, and that my intellects were for the time deranged; nor was it very easy for me to assume sufficient calm to disabuse him of his error, and assert my own perfect coherency. “You have been out for a lark,” said he, laughingly. “I see it all. You have been at one of those tea-gardens and got into a row with some stout Fleming. All the young English go through that sort of thing. Ain't I right?” “Never more mistaken in your life, Captain. My conduct since I landed would not discredit a canon of St. Paul's. In fact, all my habits, my tastes, my instincts, are averse to every sort of junketing. I am essentially retiring, sensitive, And, if you will, over-fastidious in my choice of associates. My story is simply this.” My reader will readily excuse my repeating what is already known to him. It is enough if I say that the captain, although anything rather than mirthful, held his hand several times over his face, and once laughed out loudly and boisterously. “You don't say it was Christy Jopplyn, do you?” said he, at last. “You don't tell me it was Jopplyn?” “The fellow called himself Jopplyn, but I know nothing of him beyond that.” “Why, he's mad jealous about that wife of his; that little woman with the corkscrew curls, and the scorbutic face, that came over with us. Oh! you did not see her aboard, you went below at once, I remember; but there was, she, in her black ugly, and her old crape shawl--” “In mourning?” “Yes. Always in mourning. She never wears anything else, though Christy goes about in colors, and not particular as to the tint, either.” There came a cold perspiration over me as I heard these words, and perceived that my proffer of devotion had been addressed to a married woman, and the wife of the “most jealous man in Europe.” “And who is this Jopplyn?” asked I, haughtily, and in all the proud confidence of my present security. “He's a railway contractor,--a shrewd sort of fellow, with plenty of money, and a good head on his shoulders; sensible on every point except his Jealousy.” “The man must be an idiot,” said I, indignantly, “to rush indiscriminately about the world with accusations of this kind. Who wants to supplant him? Who seeks to rob him of the affections of his wife?” “That's all very well and very specious,” said he, gravely; “but if men will deliberately set themselves down at a writing-table, hammering their brains for fine sentiments, and toiling to find grand expressions for their passion, it does not require that a husband should be as jealous as Christy Jopplyn to take it badly. I don't think I'm a rash or a hasty man, but I know what I 'd do in such a circumstance.” “And pray, what would _you_ do?” said I, half impertinently.