"Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of supercilious temperament.
"Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from Washin'ton, ain't ye? Washin'ton, D.C.?"
"Certainly."
"P'litical centre o' the United States of Ameriky?"
"Why, yes."
"An' you don't know what ructions be!"
Loud laughter greeted this sally; only the man who had been in California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed upon me.
"Then I'll tell ye what ructions be," proceeded Captain Pharo, breathing stertorously through his pipe; "it's repealin' all our optional acts, for one thing! We can't institoot an optional act down here, but what you go an' repeal it!"
"Oh, stuff!" said the high and hot-headed young man, quite taken off his level by the laughter round him; "I don't either!"
"I say ye do!" said Captain Pharo, waxing more and more wroth; "ye sets some feller t' work there, 't never see salt water, t' make our laws for us; 'lows us to ketch all the spawn lobsters and puts injunctions onter the little ones: like takin' people when they gits to be sixteen or twenty year old, 'n' choppin' their heads off—yer race is goin' to multiply almighty fast, ain't it?"