A Ship Surgeon.
“Well, Mr Rodd, sir,” said Captain Chubb, as he and the lad stood watching the regular dip of oars in the brig’s two boats as they glided back over the tranquil sea to where their vessel lay motionless in the calm. “Well, Mr Rodd, sir, don’t you wish you’d been born a Frenchman?”
“No,” cried the boy sharply. “I am thankful I was born English.”
“And so you ought to be, my lad. Of all the crackbrained, sentimental, outrageous chaps I ever met there’s none of them comes up to a Frenchman.”
“Oh, you are too bad, Captain Chubb.”
“Too bad, eh? Why, aren’t they always kicking up a dust and making revolutions, cutting off their kings’ and queens’ heads, and then going to war with all the world, with their Napoleons and Bonapartes and all the rest of them? Call themselves men!”
“Why, you are as bad as uncle,” cried Rodd merrily. “You and he ought to be always the best of friends. But, if you speak fairly you must own that they are very gallant men.”
“Gallant men!” cried the skipper scornfully. “I don’t call them men. I call them monkeys! Men! Butchers, as cut off the head of their beautiful Queen Mary What-you-may-call-it, and then after shedding blood like that, sending no end of poor women who never did them a bit of harm to that guillotine. I’d be ashamed of myself, Mr Rodd, to take their part.”
“Oh, nonsense!” cried Rodd warmly. “I say that the Count and his son have proved themselves to be very brave fellows. Why, you owned as much yourself about the way in which they escaped with the brig.”
“Oh, that was right enough,” grumbled the skipper.