"Why does he do that?" Malooney whispered. Malooney has a singularly
hearty whisper.

Dick and I got the women and children out of the room as quickly as
we could, but of course Veronica managed to tumble over something on
the way--Veronica would find something to tumble over in the desert
of Sahara; and a few days later I overheard expressions, scorching
their way through the nursery door, that made my hair rise up. I
entered, and found Veronica standing on the table. Jumbo was sitting
upon the music-stool. The poor dog himself was looking scared,
though he must have heard a bit of language in his time, one way and
another.

"Veronica," I said, "are you not ashamed of yourself? You wicked
child, how dare you--"

"It's all right," said Veronica. "I don't really mean any harm.
He's a sailor, and I have to talk to him like that, else he don't
know he's being talked to."

I pay hard-working, conscientious ladies to teach this child things
right and proper for her to know. They tell her clever things that
Julius Caesar said; observations made by Marcus Aurelius that,
pondered over, might help her to become a beautiful character. She
complains that it produces a strange buzzy feeling in her head; and
her mother argues that perhaps her brain is of the creative order,
not intended to remember much--thinks that perhaps she is going to be
something. A good round-dozen oaths the Captain must have let fly
before Dick and I succeeded in rolling her out of the room. She had
only heard them once, yet, so far as I could judge, she had got them