"I ask no better," returned Steadfast, declining the offer; "I have told every one on the Continent,"--Mr. Dodge had been to Paris, Geneva, along the Rhine, and through Belgium and Holland, and in his eyes, this was the Continent,--"that no better ship or captain sails the ocean; and you know captain, I have a way with me, when I please, that causes what I say to be remembered. Why, my dear sir, I had an article extolling the whole line in the most appropriate terms, and this ship in particular, put into the journal at Rotterdam. It was so well done, that not a soul suspected it came from a personal friend of yours."
The captain was rolling the small end of a cigar in his mouth to prepare it for smoking, the regulations of the ship forbidding any further indulgence below; but when he received this assurance, he withdrew the tobacco with the sort of mystifying simplicity that gets to be a second nature with a regular votary of Neptune, and answered with a coolness of manner that was in ridiculous contrast to the affected astonishment of the words:--
"The devil you did!--Was it in good Dutch?"
"I do not understand much of the language," said Mr. Dodge, hesitatingly; for all he knew, in truth, was yaw and nein, and neither of these particularly well;--"but it looked to be uncommonly well expressed. I could do no more than pay a man to translate it. But to return to this affair of running in among the Scilly Islands such a night as this."
"Return, my good fellow! this is the first syllable you have said about the matter!"
"Concern on your account has caused me to forget myself. To be frank with you, Captain Truck, and if I wer'n't your very best friend I should be silent, there is considerable excitement getting up about this matter."
"Excitement! what is that like?--a sort of moral head-sea, do you mean?"
"Precisely: and I must tell you the truth, though I had rather a thousand times not; but this change in the ship's course is monstrous unpopular!"
"That is bad news, with a vengeance, Mr. Dodge; I shall rely on you, as an old friend, to get up an opposition."
"My dear captain, I have done all I could in that way already; but I never met with people so bent on a thing as most of the passengers. The Effinghams are very decided, though so purse-proud and grand; Sir George Templemore declares it is quite extraordinary, and even the French lady is furious. To be as sincere as the crisis demands, public opinion is setting so strong against you, that I expect an explosion."