"We will say no more about it," he said haughtily. "I am the captain and I command as I see fit…. I have given my promise, and I am not going to break it just to please you…. We have finished."
Toni staggered as though he had just received a blow on the breast. His eyes shone again, becoming moist. After a long period of reflection, he held out his shaggy right hand to the captain.
"Good-by, Ulysses!…"
He could not obey, and a sailor who takes disrespectful exception to the orders of his chief must leave the ship. In no other boat could he ever live as in the Mare Nostrum. Perhaps he might not get another job, perhaps the other captains might not like him, considering him to have grown too habituated to excessive familiarity. But, if it should be necessary, he would again become the skipper of a little coast-trader…. Good-by! He would not sleep on board that night.
Ferragut was very indignant, even yelling angrily:
"But, don't be such a barbarian!… What a stubborn fool you are!…
What do these exaggerated scruples amount to?…"
Then he smiled malignly and said in a low tone, "You know already what we know, and I know very well that in your youth you carried contraband."
Toni drew himself up haughtily. Now it was he who was indignant.
"I have carried contraband, yes. And what is there astonishing about that?… Your grandparents did the same thing. There is not a single honorable sailor on our sea who has not committed this little offense…. Who is the worse for that?…"
The only one who could complain was the State, a vague personality whose whereabouts and place nobody knew and who daily experienced a million of similar violations. In the custom-houses Toni had seen the richest tourists eluding the vigilance of the employees in order to evade an insignificant payment. Every one down in his heart was a smuggler…. Besides, thanks to these fraudulent navigators, the poor were able to smoke better and more cheaply. Whom were they assassinating with their business?… How did Ferragut dare to compare these evasions of the law which never did anybody any harm with the job of aiding submarine pirates in continuing their crimes?…