"Now, please be good while I go on. I want to repeat Dr. Ferrier's reasoning if I can. You have fish every day—mostly twice?"
"Yes, but I don't give charity to my butcher. The rascal is able to tip me, if the truth were known."
"True, uncle, and you don't need to give anything to your fishmonger. Why, you silly dear, you think you are a commercial genius, and yet the fishmonger probably charges you ever so much per cent over and above what the fishermen receive, because of the great expense of railway carriage and distribution of the fish. I know that, because Mr. Fullerton told me; so you see I've corrected you, even you, on a point of finance."
How prettily this stern, composed young woman could put on artful airs of youthfulness when she chose! How she had that firm, far-seeing old man held in position, ready to be twirled round her rosy finger!
Which of us is not held in bondage by some creature of the kind? Unhappy the man who misses that sweet and sacred slavery.
Mr. Cassall wrinkled his grim face not unpleasantly. "Go on; go on. You're a lawyer, neither more nor less. By the way, who is this—this what's-the-name—the Doctor, that you mentioned?"
"Oh! he is a very clever young man who has chosen to become a surgeon instead of being a university professor. He's now out on the North Sea in all this bad weather. He was so much struck with the need of a hospital, that he made up his mind to risk a winter so that he may tell people exactly what he has seen. He doesn't do things in a half-hearted way.
"What a long, pretty description of Mr. Ferrier. You seem to have taken a good deal of notice of the fortunate youth. Well, proceed."
Marion was a little flushed when she resumed, but her uncle did not observe anything at all unusual.
"Where was I?—Oh, yes! You hold it right to give money in charity to deserving objects. Now these men out at sea were left for years, perhaps for centuries, to live as a class without hope or help. Dear good creatures like my own uncle actually never knew that such people were in existence. They were far worse off than savages who have plantains and pumpkins and cocoanuts, and they were our own good flesh and blood, yet we neglected them."