Med. Hum!
Inkle. I was thinking too, if so many natives could be caught, how much they might fetch at the West Indian markets.
Med. Now let me ask you a question, or two, young cannibal catcher, if you please.
Inkle. Well.
Med. Ar'n't we bound for Barbadoes; partly to trade, but chiefly to carry home the daughter of the governor, Sir Christopher Curry, who has till now been under your father's care, in Threadneedle-street, for polite English education?
Inkle. Granted.
Med. And isn't it determined, between the old folks, that you are to marry Narcissa, as soon as we get there?
Inkle. A fixed thing.
Med. Then what the devil do you do here, hunting old hairy negroes, when you ought to be obliging a fine girl in the ship? Algebra, too! You'll have other things to think of when you are married, I promise you. A plodding fellow's head, in the hands of a young wife, like a boy's slate, after school, soon gets all its arithmetic wiped off: and then it appears in its true simple state: dark, empty, and bound in wood, Master Inkle.