“Were you her lover in the past as you are her champion in the present, Hammond?” laughed Reding.
“No—yes—I don’t know.”
“Clear, to the point, and satisfactory, that answer!” laughed the captain.
“I mean to say that I loved her, but not in the sense you mean. I loved her only as a great New Foundland dog might love a baby; as a big brute like myself might love such a little angel as she was,” said Dick, gravely.
“Oh, yes, all women are angels until they are—found out!” mused Lieutenant Harpe, rousing himself.
“What did you say, sir?” coolly inquired Dick.
“I say,” defiantly answered Harpe, “that all women are angels until they are found out, and then they are fallen angels, every one of ’em!”
“Speak for the women you know best, sir! for those you have been brought up with; for those you associate with; for those nearest and dearest to you. For, of course, of them only can you speak from knowledge! As for me, I judge a man and his family by his judgment of women. He who traduces the sex defames his own mother—and his sisters, wife, and daughters if he has them!” said Dick, indignantly.
Instead of attempting a reply to this scathing rebuke, the weak traducer of woman looked around on his companions, with a tipsy smile, and winking knowingly, said: “I don’t mind him, bless you! He don’t know what he’s talking about; he’s tight—tight as ever he can be! He wants to quarrel now; he’s always quarrelsome in his cups!”
And having delivered himself of this opinion, he crossed his arms upon the table, dropped his head upon them, and resigned himself to sleep.