“Yes,” said Polly, hastening to explain; “you see, my aunt Maria has been so good as to offer to take me to live with her and put me to school.”
“Ha!” said the captain, almost blowing the buttered toast out of his mouth with contempt, “and Aunt Maria says she’ll make a lady of Polly! Think o’ that, Jack; make a lady out of an angel!”
The captain was so tickled with the idea that he went off into a roar of sarcastic laughter.
“I’ll tell ’ee what it is, Jack,” he continued on recovering, “I shouldn’t wonder it in the course of a few months’ residence with her, Polly was to make a lady out of Aunt Maria—supposin’ that to be possible.”
“Oh! father,” remonstrated Polly.
“Come,” cried the captain savagely, “give us a nor’-wester—that’s it; another—thank ’ee. The fact is, I’m goin’ in for nor’-westers durin’ the next fortnight—goin’ to have it blow a regular hurricane of ’em.”
Philosopher Jack hoped, if at all allowable, that he might be permitted to come under the influence of the gale, and then asked why Polly was leaving her father.
“She’s not leavin’ me, bless you,” said the captain, “it’s me that’s leavin’ her. The fact is, I’ve got a ship. What’s left of me is not over young, but it’s uncommon tough, so I mean to use it up as long as it lasts for Polly. I’m off to the East Indies in two or three weeks. If it hadn’t been for this Aunt Maria I shouldn’t have known what to do for Polly, so I’ve no call to abuse the stupid old thing. A lady, indeed—ha!”
“You might have been quite sure that my father’s house would have been open to Polly,” said Jack quite warmly, “or Mr Wilkins’s, for the matter of that.”
“I know it lad, I know it” returned the captain, slapping his friend on the shoulder, “but after all, this Aunt Maria—this lady-like individual—is the most natural protector. But now, tell me, what of O’Rook?”