"No; look here--deception is bad; but not to be able to keep it up after
one has been forced into it. You know that since I've been squeezed
out of the Western Ocean packets by younger men, just on account of my
grizzled muzzle--you know how much chance I had to ever get a ship. And
not a soul to turn to. We have been a lonely couple, we two--she threw
away everything for me--and to see her want a piece of dry bread------"

He banged with his fist fit to split the Frenchman's table in two.

"I would have turned a sanguinary pirate for her, let alone cheating
my way into a berth by dyeing my hair. So when you came to me with your
chemist's wonderful stuff------"

He checked himself.

"By the way, that fellow's got a fortune when he likes to pick it up. It
is a wonderful stuff--you tell him salt water can do nothing to it. It
stays on as long as your hair will."

"All right," I said. "Go on."

Thereupon he went for Johns again with a fury that frightened his wife,
and made me laugh till I cried.

"Just you try to think what it would have meant to be at the mercy of
the meanest creature that ever commanded a ship! Just fancy what a life
that crawling Johns would have led me! And I knew that in a week or so
the white hair would begin to show. And the crew. Did you ever think of
that? To be shown up as a low fraud before all hands. What a life for me
till we got to Calcutta! And once there--kicked out, of course. Half-pay