“But gentlemen in my way of business,” continued the shipbroker, “always expect these kind of casualties. Now, only this last season, there was my ‘Saucy Jane,’ that was coming from Russia with as much tallow and hides as she could carry, when, hang me, if she didn’t go ashore at Portsmouth; and the captain didn’t do his duty to her, and so she was abandoned there.”
“Lord bless my heart, how shocking!” exclaimed the moral Miss Wewitz; “but those seaport towns are dreadful places for all young persons; and maybe, sir, there was not that strict attention paid to her in her early days, that is so necessary to future well-being.”
“Oh, yes; but my Saucy Jane, you see, had every attention paid to her that was requisite,” responded the pompous shipping agent. “She was splendidly victualled, and, what was more, she had her full complement of hands.”
“Her full complement of hands!” echoed the astounded schoolmistress. I suppose he must mean that she wasn’t deformed; “but maybe your poor Jane, sir, went astray through temptation; for, you know, it is said we cannot serve two masters.”
“Not serve two masters!” exclaimed the man of ships; “why, I’ve several masters, and I know many that would jump to serve them. But my time’s precious; so if you’ll just let me step up to this young lady, I’ll just give her a bit of a talking to, and see what can be done with her.”
Miss Wewitz, who was too glad to put an end to a conversation that was far from interesting to her, owing to the apparent oddity of the characters to which it referred, rose from her chair, and requesting the gentleman to follow her, proceeded to conduct him up the stairs to the linen-room.
The schoolmistress held back the door as she pointed to the figure of the young lady, with her face still buried in her hands, and whispered in the ear of the gentleman, “that she had been in the same attitude a good part of the previous day, and the whole of that morning.”
The shipping agent advanced pompously into the room, and, as he stood in the centre of the small apartment, he addressed himself to the figure, saying—
“I have been requested to speak to you, in the name of my old friend, your father, on the perverseness of your late conduct to your preceptress, Miss Wewitz, and I have now to command you, in the name of your parents, to leave your present position, and follow me and your schoolmistress down stairs.”
To the ineffable astonishment of the guardian, not a limb of the form before him moved.