BIMBO
Did what?
LYDIA (pointing to the brazier fearfully)
You said—that—was for me!
BIMBO
Because you shivered. It was because I thought you were cold.
LYDIA
You said, “Send brimstone with fire!”
BIMBO (frowning; pointing to the Deaf-and-Dumb Man)
His name’s Brimstone. He’s Salem born, too—Brimstone Smith.
LYDIA (incredulous)
It wasn’t to burn me?
BIMBO (annoyed)
It was to get you better comfort.
LYDIA (relieved, but not greatly)
Oh! Am I just to—(shuddering)—to be thrown into the sea?
BIMBO (angrily)
What! (He turns back to the table as if to control himself; is silent a moment; then addresses his subordinates with an air of helpless indignation.) There it is! That’s the reputation such people as Low and Lowther and Teach get for our calling! Now you see what comes of drinking on duty! Men like that misbehave, and the reputation of a whole business suffers for it! I told Lowther the last time I saw him; I said: “I hear your crew was in liquor when they took a Portagee vessel and went and did harm to some o’ they poor Portagees,” I said. “Oh, well,” he says, “what of it? They was only Portagees,” he says. “What of it?” I asks him. “Why, there’s this of it,” I says. “You and such as you and your crew,” I says, “you’ll get a bad name to all of us!” I says. He didn’t like it, but I thought best to speak out to his face. And you see I spoke true.
THE GUNNER (gloomily)
So ye did! That’s it; let one or two bad uns get into any business, soon you’ll hear everybody saying the whole business is bad!