“Yes, I would,” said Alonzo doggedly. “The world owes me a living; the rich have more than belongs to them, and I am ready to relieve them of what belongs to the poor. What do you say, men?”
“That’s the way to talk,” said all in substance.
They were social outlaws—offenders in the eye of the law, but Alonzo’s specious reasoning gave an air of respectability to their profession, and they were ready to adopt it as their own.
“It may be so,” said the captain, “but I wouldn’t ask a boy to join us.”
He got up from the grass on which he had been reclining with the rest, and walked thoughtfully away.
“Something’s come over the captain,” said Alonzo, looking after him.
“I don’t know but the captain’s right after all,” said another of the men.
“What, Jack, are you going to turn back on us.”
“Not I, nor the captain neither, but what he said about a boy’s taking up our business came home to me. I’ve got a boy somewhere about the age of that youngster. He don’t know what his father is, and he sha’n’t know, if I can help it. I ain’t good for much, but I want that boy to grow up respectable.”
“Suppose we change the subject,” said Alonzo, adding with a sneer, “piety’s spreading. I sha’n’t be surprised, Jack, to hear that you and the captain have turned missionaries. As for me, I ain’t partial to a black suit and a white choker.”