"Oh, really!" Lady Agatha looked up from her work of mercy and spoke with animation, and then gazed upon the youth's face again with a new interest. "An anarchist! How interesting! I have ALWAYS wanted to meet an anarchist."
"Poor boy, he don't look like nothin' bad," said Cap'n Abernethy, who seemed to have taken a fancy to Giuseppe Jones.
"Listen," said Cleggett, and read:
"As for your flag, I spit upon your flag!
I spit upon your organized society anywhere and everywhere;
I spit upon your churches;
I spit upon your capitalistic institutions;
I spit upon your laws;
I spit upon the whole damned thing!
But, as I spit, I weep! I weep!"
"How silly!" said Lady Agatha. "What does it mean?"
"It means——" began Cleggett, and then stopped. The book of revolutionary verse, taken in conjunction with the red flag that had been displayed and then withdrawn, made him wonder if Morris's were the headquarters of some band of anarchists.
But, if so, why should this band show such an interest in the Jasper B.? An interest so hostile to her present owner and his men?
"If you was to ask me what it means," said Captain Abernethy, who had taken the book and was fingering it, "I'd say it means young Jones here has fell into bad company. That don't explain how he sneaked into the hold of the Jasper B., nor what for. But he orter have a doctor."
"He shall have a physician," said Cleggett. "In fact, the Jasper B. needs a ship's doctor."
"It looks to me," said Captain Abernethy, "as if she did. And if you was to go further, Mr. Cleggett, and say that it looks as if she was liable to need a couple o' trained nurses, too, I'd say to you that if they's goin' to be many o' these kind o' goin's-on aboard of her she DOES need a couple of trained nurses."