sir) he can always lie the best course
possible, and that's what I'll do, so God help me.

GAUNT. Arethusa, you at least are the child of many prayers; your eyes
have been unsealed; and to you the world stands naked, a morning watch
for duration, a thing spun of cobwebs for solidity. In the presence of
an angry God, I ask you: Have you heard this man?

ARETHUSA. Father, I know Kit, and I love him.

GAUNT. I say it solemnly, this is no Christian union. To you,
Christopher French, I will speak nothing of eternal truths: I will speak
to you the language of this world. You have been trained among sinners
who gloried in their sin: in your whole life you never saved one
farthing; and now, when your pockets are full, you think you can begin,
poor dupe, in your own strength. You are a roysterer, a jovial
companion; you mean no harm--you are nobody's enemy but your own. No
doubt you tell this girl of mine, and no doubt you tell yourself, that
you can change. Christopher, speaking under correction, I defy you! You
ask me for this child of many supplications, for this brand plucked from
the burning: I look at you: I read you through and through; and I tell
you--no! (_Striking table with his fist._)

KIT. Captain Gaunt, if you mean that I am not worthy of her, I'm the
first to say so. But, if you'll excuse me, sir, I'm a young man, and
young men are no better'n they ought to be; it's known; they're all like
that; and what's their chance? To be married to a girl like this! And
would you refuse it to me? Why, sir, you yourself, when you came
courting, you were young and rough; and yet I'll make bold to say that
Mrs. Gaunt was a happy woman, and the saving of yourself into the
bargain. Well, now, Captain Gaunt, will you deny another man, and that
man a sailor, the very salvation that you had yourself?

GAUNT. Salvation, Christopher French, is from above.

KIT. Well, sir, that is so; but there's means, too; and what means so
strong as the wife a man has to strive and toil for, and that bears the
punishment whenever he goes wrong? Now, sir, I've spoke with your old
shipmates in the Guinea trade. Hard as nails, they said, and true as the
compass: as rough as a slaver, but as just as a judge. Well, sir, you
hear me plead: I ask you for my chance; don't you deny it to me.

GAUNT. You speak of me? In the true balances we both weigh nothing. But
two things I know: the depth of iniquity, how foul it is; and the agony
with which a man