The answer was propitious, and the steward soon appeared with the breakfast in the ladies’ cabin.
“Well, Maddox,” said Cecilia, “how do you get on with your new master?”
The steward looked at the door, to see if it was closed, shook his head, and then said, with a look of despair, “He has ordered a haunch of venison for dinner, miss, and he has twice threatened to toss me overboard.”
“You must obey him, Maddox, or he certainly will. These pirates are dreadful fellows. Be attentive, and serve him just as if he was my father.”
“Yes, yes, ma’am, I will; but our time may come. It’s burglary on the high seas, and I’ll go fifty miles to see him hanged.”
“Steward!” cried Pickersgill, from the cabin.
“O Lord! He can’t have heard me—d’ye think he did, miss?”
“The partitions are very thin, and you spoke very loud,” said Mrs Lascelles: “at all events, go to him quickly.”
“Good bye, miss; good bye, ma’am; if I shouldn’t see you any more,” said Maddox, trembling with fear, as he obeyed the awful summons—which was to demand a tooth-pick.
Miss Ossulton would not touch the breakfast; not so Mrs Lascelles and Cecilia, who ate very heartily.