“My husband was a seafaring man, the captain of a vessel; he didn’t die of cholera; he was drowned.”
“O, drowned, eh?” pursued the inquisitor, hesitating for a brief instant. “Save his chist?”
“Yes; the vessel was saved, and my husband’s effects,” said the widow.
“Was they?” asked the Yankee, his eyes brightening up. “Pious man?”
“He was a member of the Methodist Church.”
The next question was a little delayed, but it came.
“Don’t you think that you have great cause to be thankful that he was a pious man, and saved his chist?”
“I do,” said the widow abruptly, and turned her head to look out of the window.
The indefatigable “pump” changed his position, held the widow by his glittering eye once more, and propounded one more query, in a lower tone, with his head slightly inclined forward, over the back of the seat,—
“Was you calculating to get married again?”