"I guess I'll be obedient, Captain," said Liosha, proud of her incredulity.
"I don't allow my ship's company to bring many trunks and portmanteaux aboard," smiled Captain Maturin.
"I'll see to the dunnage," said Jaffery.
"The what?" I asked.
"It's only passengers that have luggage. Sailor folk like Liosha and me have dunnage."
"I see," said I. "And you bring it on board in a bundle together with a parrot in a cage."
Earnest persuasion being of no avail, I must have recourse to light mockery. But it met with little response. "And what," I asked, "is to become of the forty-odd colis that we passed through the customs this morning?"
"You can take 'em home with you," said Jaffery. He grinned over his third foaming beaker of dark beer. "Isn't it a blessing I brought him along? I told him he'd come in useful."
"But, good Lord!" I protested, aghast, "what excuse can I, a lone man, give to the Southampton customs for the possession of all this baggage? They'll think I've murdered my wife on the voyage and I shall be arrested. No. There is the parcel post. There are agencies of expedition. We can forward the luggage by grande vitesse or petite vitesse—how long are you likely to be away on this Theophile Gautier voyage—'Cueillir la fleur de neige. Ou la fleur d'Angsoka'?"
"Four months," said Captain Maturin.