"I don't understand you, and I am sure you do not understand me," was her observation, after digesting the orange-peel parable. "Let it go at that, ma'am. But I reckon I kin make m'self as clear as any man, livin' or dead, when dollars are in th' pool. Now you"--he shook a large brown finger--"you, ma'am, give me taffy." "What is taffy?" "What you might call sugar--best brand, an' no sand in it, anyhow. I've struck heaps of the female in my time, and it's all taffy with them, till they annex the outfit, an' then y' kin go hang, I guess"; he fixed her with a true quarter-deck eye. "I surmise as you're tryin' t' play Sally Waters low down. Not much--oh, no. I should smile considerable to think as any gilded female got th' bulge on me. Go slow, ma'am. Make no haste when the fat's afire, ses Isaiah. Beckon he knew things, did thet prophet." Leah smiled again at this Wild West outburst. "You are a free child of nature, Captain Strange." "Taffy agin. I'm a man, you bet, same along as your husband." "I should think you and he would get on together extremely well," said Lady Jim, dryly. "But don't you think you could contrive to be a little less rude?" "Why, bless y', this is civil fur me." "How your crew must love you!" "I'd boot 'em round the ship if they didn't," snapped Strange, very ferociously. "They've got t' love me up t' the level of workin' their insides out, else I'd lay out every man jack in his little wooden overcoat." "What a sweet nature you have! Are you married?" "Got a wife o' sorts," said the mariner, indifferently, "an' two kids of th' best." His eyes softened. "Now, ma'am, you could talk t' me fur a millennium 'bout them little nippers." The last word was pure Whitechapel, and Leah wondered if that parish could claim this buccaneer. But time was too valuable to go into his private history, so she replied gently, quick to perceive that there was a flaw in his armour, "On another occasion I shall be delighted to talk nursery, Captain Strange; but the millennium has not yet arrived in Curzon Street." "Y've got me there, I don't deny," cried Strange, hardening. "Now this here racket, as I've sailed long-sides t' fix up----" "It will be fixed up, as you call it, at once," said Lady Jim, sharply. "The matter is very simple." "Is it now? Lay on th' paint, ma'am." She passed over this insolence very wisely. "You were kind to that poor Mr. Garth," she explained, calmly. "And, besides, took Dr. Demetrius to my husband in Jamaica. For these services I am willing to give you one thousand pounds--in gold, if you like"; she thought the metal might tempt him into closing with the offer, but it did not. "Shucks, ma'am, shucks! You've bin talkin' paint an' putty fur th' las' hour an' more. T'ain't no good nohow--not a bit, seein' as I'm being paid fur cold-drawn kidnappin' of your husband, so as y might loot a company of sorts."