“What do you mean, captain?” interrupted Kate, in much surprise.
“I mean, dear ladies, that you and I entered into an agreement to rent your little cabin for so much. Now it has been my rule in life to stick to agreements, and I mean to stick to this one or throw up my situation. Besides, I’m not goin’ to submit to have the half of my rent cut off. I can’t stand it. Like old Shylock, I mean to stick to the letter of the bond. Now, is it ‘to be, or not to be?’ as Hamlet said to the ass.”
“I was not aware that Hamlet said that to an ass,” remarked Jessie, with a little laugh.
“Oh yes! he did,” returned the captain quite confidently; “he said it to himself, you know, an’ that was the same thing. But what about the agreement?”
“Well, since you are so determined, I suppose we must give in,” said Kate.
“We can’t resist you, captain,” said Jessie, “but there is one thing that we must positively insist on, namely, that you come and sit in this room of an evening. I suppose you read or write a great deal, for we see your light burning very late sometimes, and as you have no fire you must often feel very cold.”
“Cold!” shouted the captain, with a laugh that caused the very window-frames to vibrate. “My dear ladies, I’m never cold. Got so used to it, I suppose, that it has no power over me. Why, when a man o’ my size gets heated right through, it takes three or four hours to cool him even a little. Besides, if it do come a very sharp frost, I’ve got a bear-skin coat that our ship-carpenter made for me one voyage in the arctic regions. It is hot enough inside almost to cook you. Did I ever show it you? I’ll fetch it.”
Captain Bream rose with such energy that he unintentionally spurned his chair—his own solid peculiar chair—and caused it to pirouette on one leg before tumbling backward with a crash. Next minute he returned enveloped from head to foot in what might be termed a white-bear ulster, with an enormous hood at the back of his neck.
Accustomed as the sisters were to their lodger’s bulk, they were not prepared for the marvellous increase caused by the monstrous hairy garment.
“It would puzzle the cold to get at me through this, wouldn’t it?” said its owner, surveying it with complacency. “It was my own invention too—at least the carpenter and I concocted it between us.