BURKE--You don't know the like I am. Death itself wouldn't make me forget her. So let you not be making talk to me about leaving her. I'll not, and be damned to you! It won't be so bad for you as you'd make out at all. She'll be living here in the States, and her married to me. And you'd be seeing her often so--a sight more often than ever you saw her the fifteen years she was growing up in the West. It's quare you'd be the one to be making great trouble about her leaving you when you never laid eyes on her once in all them years. CHRIS--[Guiltily.] Ay taught it vas better Anna stay avay, grow up inland where she don't ever know ole davil, sea. BURKE--[Scornfully.] Is it blaming the sea for your troubles ye are again, God help you? Well, Anna knows it now. 'Twas in her blood, anyway. CHRIS--And Ay don't vant she ever know no-good fallar on sea-- BURKE--She knows one now. CHRIS--[Banging the table with his fist--furiously.] Dat's yust it! Dat's yust what you are--no-good, sailor fallar! You tank Ay lat her life be made sorry by you like her mo'der's vas by me! No, Ay svear! She don't marry you if Ay gat kill you first! BURKE--[Looks at him a moment, in astonishment--then laughing uproariously.] Ho-ho! Glory be to God, it's bold talk you have for a stumpy runt of a man! CHRIS--[Threateningly.] Vell--you see! BURKE--[With grinning defiance.] I'll see, surely! I'll see myself and Anna married this day, I'm telling you! [Then with contemptuous exasperation.] It's quare fool's blather you have about the sea done this and the sea done that. You'd ought to be shamed to be saying the like, and you an old sailor yourself. I'm after hearing a lot of it from you and a lot more that Anna's told me you do be saying to her, and I'm thinking it's a poor weak thing you are, and not a man at all! CHRIS--[Darkly.] You see if Ay'm man--maybe quicker'n you tank. BURKE--[Contemptuously.] Yerra, don't be boasting. I'm thinking 'tis out of your wits you've got with fright of the sea. You'd be wishing Anna married to a farmer, she told me. That'd be a swate match, surely! Would you have a fine girl the like of Anna lying down at nights with a muddy scut stinking of pigs and dung? Or would you have her tied for life to the like of them skinny, shrivelled swabs does be working in cities? CHRIS--Dat's lie, you fool! BURKE--'Tis not. 'Tis your own mad notions I'm after telling. But you know the truth in your heart, if great fear of the sea has made you a liar and coward itself. [Pounding the table.] The sea's the only life for a man with guts in him isn't afraid of his own shadow! 'Tis only on the sea he's free, and him roving the face of the world, seeing all things, and not giving a damn for saving up money, or stealing from his friends, or any of the black tricks that a landlubber'd waste his life on. 'Twas yourself knew it once, and you a bo'sun for years. CHRIS--[Sputtering with rage.] You vas crazy fool, Ay tal you!