“Lord,” she thought, when she had recovered from her start, stretching herself out at length under her awning, “this is a pleasant, lazy way of life, to be sure. But,” she thought, giving her legs a kick, “these skirts are plaguey things to have about one’s heels. Yet the stuff (flowered paduasoy) is the loveliest in the world. Never have I seen my own skin (here she laid her hand on her knee) look to such advantage as now. Could I, however, leap overboard and swim in clothes like these? No! Therefore, I should have to trust to the protection of a bluejacket. Do I object to that? Now do I?” she wondered, here encountering the first knot in the smooth skein of her argument.

Dinner came before she had untied it, and then it was the Captain himself⁠—Captain Nicholas Benedict Bartolus, a sea captain of distinguished aspect, who did it for her as he helped her to a slice of corned beef.