"Do I have to?"
"Tell that person out there that it has done him no good to make those ungodly noises. My fingers have been in my ears all the time."
"You must've been really a sight," giggled Betty.
"Betty! You—you sound different, somehow."
"Oh, I am! So is Charles. We're both uninhibited now."
There was one cry of horror from Cousin Aurelia and then silence.
Betty turned to the captain. He looked downcast, and Herman did, too.
"We'll just have to try something else, something clever," she told the captain. "Cousin Aurelia seems dead set against you. It's because of your being a pirate, I guess."
Charles and Betty spent the next couple of days avoiding any mention of the captain's former profession and helping him think up new ways to uninhibit Cousin Aurelia. He tried singing again, this time with an augmented chorus of Herman's relations. When that also failed, he cooked her a fine mushroom omelette. Then he caught her a young animal with lavender ears to keep as a pet and he spent a whole evening reading Sonnets from the Portuguese aloud at her window.