"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." "It's very sinful; and it is to be feared that the poor man was made to think of all this in his latter moments." "If the Arabs undertook to cannibalize him, I think he must have given it to them right and left," continued Saunders, wiping an eye, for between him and the captain there had existed some such affection as the prisoner comes to feel for the handcuffs with which he amuses his _ennui_, "some of his oaths would choke a dog." "Well, let him rest--let him rest. Providence is kind, and the poor man may have repented in season." "And Toast, too! I'm sure, Mrs. Ann, I forgive Toast all the little mistakes he made, from the bottom of my heart, and particularly that affair of the beefsteak that he let fall into the coffee the morning that Captain Truck took me so flat aback about it; and I pray most dewoutly that the captain, now he has dropped this mortal coil, and that there is nothing left of him but soul, may not find it out, lest it should breed ill-blood between them in heaven." "Steward, you scarcely know what you say," interrupted Ann, shocked at his ignorance, "and I will speak of it no more."