This was the very longest speech that Miss Ranken was ever known to make, and she was applauded for her remarkable excursion into practical affairs.
"You must tell us a little more about your winter, Mr. Ferrier. Lena hasn't heard half enough," observed the stately "little jilt" when the cataract of Miss Ranken's eloquence had ceased flowing.
"Better wait until the meeting, Miss Dearsley. Then, if you are satisfied, I may be able to do something in different places."
"But you will tell us how Tom Betts fared in the end?"
"He was well and at work when we left his fleet, and he had established a sort of elaborate myth, with you as central figure. I'm afraid you would never recognize your own doings if you heard his version of them. Tom's imagination is distinctly active. We had no bad mishaps with our men, but it was a dreadful time."
"I think you seem to be more solemn and older than when you went away first, Mr. Ferrier," remarked the Treasurer of the Capturers.
"One ages fast there; I really lived a good deal. One life isn't enough for that work. I suppose the Englishmen began working on the Banks two hundred years ago, and we have all that time of neglect to make up."
"Yes. I wonder now what was the use of our ancestors. My brother says that no philosopher has ever discovered the ultimate uses of babies; I wonder if any one can tell the uses of those blundering, silly old ancestors of ours. As far as I can see, we have to put up with all sorts of horrid things, and you have to go and get wet on dirty fishing-boats, just because our ancestors neglected their proper business and stayed lazy at home."
"You mustn't start a Society for the Abolition of Ancestors, Miss Ranken. We have to make up all lost ground, and we can't help it. I'm sorry almost that I take it all so seriously. I feel so very much like a middle-aged prig. Perhaps, Miss Dearsley, we may grow more cheerful when your uncle and I (and you) are fairly at work and clear of brooding. At present I seem to exude lectures and serious precepts."
"You go to Yarmouth after the meeting, Mr. Ferrier?"