"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack.
"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do
I, to that extent. It's tempting Providence."
"In what way?"
"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same."
"What's her name, I wonder?"
"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old Devastation? Why, it's fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days. Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass.
"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?"
"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it, but it—it hurts."
Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was now the Major's turn to echo Dick.
"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his brother, too—in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher— result of hard work and plain living, no doubt."