The lawyer was loud in his admiration of this classical piece, and what he afterwards found was The Crew's original and only tune. "That was the kind of wife for a poor man," remarked Sylvanus, meditatively; "but she was mighty hard on her old dad."
"They're a poor lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely, thinking of the quandary in which he and his friend were placed.
"Who is?" asked The Crew.
"Why, the women, to be sure."
"Look here, Mister, my name may be Sylvanus, but I know I'm pretty rough, for all that. But, rough as I am, I don't sit quiet and let any man, no, not as good friends as you and me has been, say a word agin the wimmen. When I think o' these yere gals as was in this blessed schooner last summer, I feel it my juty, bein' I'm one o' them as helped to sail her then, to stand up fer all wimmen kind, and, no offence meant. I guess your own mother's one o' the good sort, now wasn't she?"
"I should say she is," replied Coristine; "there are splendid women in the world, but they're all married."
"That don't stand to reason, nohow," said The Crew, with gravity, "'cos there was a time wonst when they wasn't married, and if they was good arter they was good afore. And, moreover, what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen!"
"All right, Sylvanus, we won't quarrel over them, and to show I bear no malice, I'll sing a song about the sex," whereupon he trolled out: "Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Wilkinson came running aft when he heard the strain, and cried: "Good heavens! Coristine, whatever has got into you, are you mad or intoxicated?"
"I'll bet you your boots and your bottom dollar that he ain't that, Mister," interposed The Crew, "fer you couldn't scare up liquor enough on this yere Susan Thomas to turn the head of a canary."
"We are exchanging musical treats," said Coristine in defence. "Sylvanus here favoured me with an old ballad, not in the Percy collection, and I have been giving him one of the songs from the dramatists."