portion of his readers would fancy he was merely asserting the liberty of
the press. Heavens save us! You have been dreaming abroad, Ned Effingham,
while your country has retrograded, in all that is respectable and good, a
century in a dozen years!"

As this was the usual language of John Effingham, neither of his listeners
thought much of it, though Mr. Effingham more decidedly expressed an
intention to cut off even the slight communication with the offender, he
had permitted himself to keep up, since they had been on board.

"Think better of it, dear father," said Eve; "for such a man is scarcely
worthy of even your resentment. He is too much your inferior in
principles, manners, character, station, and everything else, to render
him of so much account; and then, were we to clear up this masquerade into
which the chances of a ship have thrown us, we might have our scruples
concerning others, as well as concerning this wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Say rather an ass, shaved and painted to resemble a zebra," muttered
John. "The fellow has no property as respectable as the basest virtue of
a wolf."

"He has at least rapacity."

"And can howl in a pack. This much, then, I will concede to you: but I
agree with Eve, we must either punish him affirmatively, by pulling his
ears, or treat him with contempt, which is always negative or silent. I
wish he had entered the state-room of that fine young fellow, Paul Blunt,
who is of an age and a spirit to give him a lesson that might make a
paragraph for his Active Inquirer, if not a scissors' extract of himself."