“As clear an explanation as the shrewdest casuist could desire! I admire your succinctness, Master Skimmer, and confess you for the pink of etiquette. When your fortune shall be made, I recommend the court circle as your place of retirement. Governors, creditors, Queen, and imprisonment, all as compactly placed, in the same sentence, as if it were the creed written on a thumb-nail! Well, sir, we will suppose my interest what you wish it.—Who and what is the delinquent?” “One named Seadrift,—a useful and a pleasant youth, who passes much between me and my customers; heedless and merry in his humors, but dear to all in my brigantine, because of tried fidelity and shrewd wit. We could sacrifice the profits of the voyage, that he were free. To me he is a necessary agent, for his skill in the judgment of rich tissues, and other luxuries that compose my traffic, is exceeding; and I am better fitted to guide the vessel to her haven, and to look to her safety amid shoals and in tempests, than to deal in these trifles of female vanity.” “So dexterous a go-between should not have mistaken a tide-waiter for a customer—how befell the accident?” “He met the barge of the Coquette at an unlucky moment, and as we had so lately been chased off the coast by the cruiser, there was no choice but to arrest him.” The dilemma is not without embarrassment. When once his mind is settled, it is no trifle that will amuse this Mr. Ludlow. I do not know a more literal construer of his orders in the fleet;—a man, sir, who thinks words have but a single set of meanings, and who knows as little as can be imagined on the difference between a sentiment and a practice.” “He is a seaman, my lord, and he reads his instructions with a seaman’s simplicity. I think none the worse of him, that he cannot be tempted from his duty; for, let us understand the right as we will, our service once taken, it becomes us all to do it faithfully.” A small red spot came and went on the cheek of the profligate Cornbury. Ashamed of his weakness, he affected to laugh at what he had heard, and continued the discourse. “Your forbearance and charity might adorn a churchman, Master Skimmer!” he answered. “Nothing can be more true, for this is an age of moral truths, as witness the Protestant succession. Men are now expected to perform, and not to profess. Is the fellow of such usefulness that he may not be abandoned to his fate?” “Much as I dote on my brigantine, and few men set their affections on woman with a stronger love, I would see the beauteous craft degenerate to a cutter for the Queen’s revenue, before I would entertain the thought! But I will not anticipate a long and painful imprisonment for the youth, since those who are not altogether powerless already take a deep and friendly concern in his safety.”