“Aye, they’ll be the death of us, those steamers,” he said. “Every year there’s more of them. They’ll be using them for men-of-war next, and then where’ll we be? Times are bad enough without steamers.”

But while he spoke he wore a preoccupied expression, as if he were more concerned with what was going on at the back of his mind than with what went on in the front.

“Did you ever hear about what happened when the first steamer put to sea in the Gulf of Paria?” he asked, however.

“No, what?” asked Margaret, with an eagerness that even exceeded the necessities of politeness in its falsity.

“She was built on the Clyde, and sailed over. (Nobody thought of using steam for a long ocean voyage in those days.) The Company thought they ought to make a to-do⁠—to popularise her, so to speak. So the first time she put to sea under her own power, they invited all the bigwigs on board: all the Members of Assembly in Trinidad, and the Governor and his Staff, and a Bishop. It was the Bishop what did the trick.”