[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Page 289
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the day, until his happiness was chiefly centered in its indulgence. This
was an expensive foible; and its gratification ere long exhausted his
legitimate means. One or two trifling and undetected peculations favoured
his folly, until a large sum happening to lie at his sole mercy for a week
or two, he made such an inroad on it as compelled a flight. Having made up
his mind to quit England, he thought it would be as easy to escape with
forty thousand pounds as with the few hundreds he had already appropriated
to himself. This capital mistake was the cause of his destruction; for the
magnitude of the sum induced the government to take unusual steps to
recover it, and was the true cause of its having despatched the cruiser in
chase of the Montauk.
The Mr. Green who had been sent to identify the fugitive, was a cold,
methodical man, every way resembling the delinquent's father, whose
office-companion he had been, and in whose track of undeviating attention
to business and negative honesty he had faithfully followed. He felt the
peculation, or robbery, for it scarce deserved a milder term, to be a
reproach on the corps to which he belonged, besides leaving a stigma on
the name of one to whom he had himself looked up as to a model for his own
imitation and government. It will readily be supposed, therefore, that
this person was not prepared to meet the delinquent in a very
forgiving mood.
"Saunders," said Captain Truck in the stern tone with which he often
hailed a-top, and which implied that instant obedience was a condition of
his forbearance, "go to the state-room of the person who has _called_
himself Sir George Templemore--give him my compliments--be very
particular, Mr. Saunders--and say Captain Truck's compliments, and then
tell him I expect the honour of his company in this cabin--the _honour_ of
his company, remember, in this cabin. If that don't bring him out of his
state-room, I'll contrive something that shall."
The steward turned up the white of his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and
proceeded forthwith on the errand. He found time, however, to stop in the
pantry, and to inform Toast that their suspicions were at least in
part true.
"This elucidates the circumstance of his having no attendant with him,
like other gentlemen on board, and a wariety of other incidents, that much
needed dewelopement. Mr. Blunt, I do collect from a few hints on deck,
turns out to be a Mr. Powis, a much genteeler name; and as they spoke to
some one in the ladies' cabin as 'Sir George,' I should not be overcome
with astonishment should Mr. Sharp actually eventuate as the real
baronite."
There was time for no more, and Saunders proceeded to summon the
delinquent.
"This is the most unpleasant part of the duty of a packet-master between
England and America," continued Captain Truck, as soon as Saunders was out
of sight. "Scarce a ship sails that it has not some runaway or other,
either in the steerage or in the cabins, and we are often called on to aid
the civil authorities on both sides of the water."
"America seems to be a favourite country with our English rogues,"
observed the office-man, drily. "This is the third that has gone from our
own department within as many years."
"Your department appears to be fruitful of such characters, sir,"
returned Captain Truck, pretty much in the spirit in which the first
Page 290
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
remark had been given.
Mr. Green was as thorough-going an Englishman as any of his class in the
island. Methodical, plodding, industrious, and regular in all his habits,
he was honest by rule, and had no leisure or inclination for any other
opinions than those which were obtained with the smallest effort. In
consequence of the limited sphere in which he dwelt, in a moral sense at
least, he was a mass of the prejudices that were most prevalent at the
period when he first obtained his notions. His hatred of France was
unconquerable, for he had early learned to consider her as the fast enemy
of England; and as to America, he deemed her to be the general asylum of
all the rogues of his own country--the possession of a people who had
rebelled against their king because the restraints of law were inherently
disagreeable to them. This opinion he had no more wish to proclaim than he
felt a desire to go up and down declaring that Satan was the father of
sin; but the fact in the one case was just as well established in his mind
as in the other. If he occasionally betrayed the existence of these
sentiments, it was as a man coughs; not because he particularly wishes to
cough, but because he cannot help it. Finding the subject so naturally
introduced, therefore, it is no wonder if some of his peculiar notions
escaped him in the short dialogue that followed.
"We have our share of bad men, I presume, sir," he rejoined to the thrust [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]