"I guess you know what my wages are, Mr. Phillips," he observed. "Don't you?"
"Why—why—ah—ah——"
"Didn't Cordelia tell you? She knows. So does Elizabeth."
"Why—why, Mrs. Berry did mention a figure, I believe. I seem to recall—ah—ah—something."
"If you remember fifteen hundred a year, you will have it right. That is the amount I'm paid for bein' in general command over there. As you say, it isn't very large, but perhaps it's large enough for what I do."
"Oh—ah, don't misunderstand me, Captain Kendrick, please don't. I was not questioning the amount of your salary."
"Wasn't you? My mistake. I thought you was."
"No; indeed no. My only feeling in regard to it was its—ah—trifling size. It—pardon me, but it seemed such a small sum for you to accept, a man of your attainments."
"My attainments, as you call 'em, haven't got me very far I'm a poor man and, just now at any rate, I'm a cripple, a wreck on a lee shore. Fifteen hundred a year isn't so small to me."
Mr Phillips apologized. He was sorry he had referred to the subject. But the captain, he was sure, understood his motive for asking, and, now that so much had been said, might he say just a word more.