"Any man would be glad to come to your aid. It is merely your misfortune that I happen to be the one."
"I'm not sure that I regard it as a very great misfortune. You proved in the case of that little boy that you can act very energetically."
"And get lectured for my intemperate zeal. Well, Miss Madison, I cannot make a very pleasing spectacle with blackamoor legs, and it's time I put my superfluous energy to some use. Suppose you get in your boat, and I'll try to push it off."
She complied with a troubled look in her face. He pushed till the veins knotted on his forehead. At this she sprang out, exclaiming, "You'll burst a blood-vessel."
"That's only a phase of a ruptured heart, and you are used to such phenomena."
"It's too bad for you to talk in that way," she cried.
"It certainly is. I will now attend strictly to business."
"I don't see what you can do."
"Carry you out to my boat—that is all I can do."
"Oh, Mr. Scofield!"