“Tell me what I ought to say, and you will find me a willing, if not an apt scholar. I am certain of having often read it, in the newspapers, and that quite lately.”
“I’ll answer for that, and it’s another proof of its being wrong. In a vessel is as correct as in a coach, and on a vessel as wrong as can be; but you can say on board a vessel, though not ‘on a vessel!’ Not on the ‘boards of a vessel,’ as Mrs. Budd has it.”
“Mr. Mulford!”
“I beg a thousand pardons, Rose, and will offend no more—though she does make some very queer mistakes!”
“My aunt thinks it an honor to my uncle’s memory to be able to use the language of his professional life, and if she do sometimes make mistakes that are absurd, it is with a motive so respectable that no sailor should deride them.”
“I am rebuked for ever. Mrs. Budd may call the anchor a silver spoon, hereafter, without my even smiling. But, if the aunt has this kind remembrance of a seaman’s life, why cannot the niece think equally well of it.”
“Perhaps she does,” returned Rose, smiling again—“seeing all its attractions through the claims of Capt. Spike.”
“I think half the danger from him gone, now that you seem so much on your guard. What an odious piece of deception, to persuade Mrs. Budd that you were fast falling into a decline!”
“One so odious that I shall surely quit the brig at the first port we enter, or even in the first suitable vessel that we may speak.”
“And Mrs. Budd—could you persuade her to such a course?”