“Have one?” he said eagerly, as he offered one of the little black books.
“Have what?”
“A Testament.”
“No, I won’t have a Testament, I’m a Catholic,” said the woman as she looked sternly up.
Captain Bream was considering how he might best suggest that the Word of God was addressed to all mankind, when a thought seemed to strike the woman.
“Are you the cap’n?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied absently, and with some degree of truth.
“Then it’s my opinion, cap’n, an’ I tell it you to your face, that you ought to be ashamed of yourself to put honest men an’ wimen in places like this—neither light, nor hair, nor nothink in the way of hornament to—”
“Captain Bream! are you there, sir?” cried the voice of his friend the missionary at that moment down the companion-hatch.
“Ay, ay, I’m here.”