description.
They perhaps think it _manly_ to do so, and imagine that a bold reckless
style of conversation, freely besprinkled with obscenity and profanity,
will excite admiration. But if they think this they are making as great
and grievous a mistake as they are ever likely to make in the whole
course of their lives. The feeling excited is not admiration; it is
utter loathing and disgust. Can you think of any man the victim of this
horrible vice, for whom you entertain the smallest spark of admiration
or respect? Would you like to hear such words from the lips of your own
father or mother, your brother or your sister? Or would you like either
of them to hear you making use of such language? After all, who and
what are the men who thus habitually indulge in obscenity and profanity?
Are they not the vicious and disreputable, the brutal drunken ruffians,
the scum of the slums, the lowest of the low, the very outcasts and
pariahs of society? And is it for one of these that you would like to
be mistaken? is it with this repulsive brotherhood that you would choose
to ally yourself? Hardly, I would fain hope. No, boys, it is _not_
manly--still less is it _gentlemanly_--to be ribald and profane. No
true gentleman--let his position in life be what it may--ever degrades
himself by the use of foul language, and don't you do it, unless you are
anxious to gain for yourself the loathing and utter contempt of your
fellows.

To resume. In this horrible interchange of filthy banter the pirates
appeared to have forgotten, for the time being, the object of their trip
off to the felucca, but at length one of them exclaimed, with a
profusion of oaths, that Carera had secured an unfair advantage of them
during the afternoon's bartering transactions, and that they had come
off to demand a cask of rum with which to square the account Carera, on
his part, tried to laugh off the whole affair as an excellent joke, and
proposed to mix them a tub of grog there and then as an appropriate
finish to it; but this would by no means satisfy the ruffians, who were
firm in their demands. So at length, recognising that longer refusal
would prove dangerous, he reluctantly ordered the hatches to be lifted.
The cask of rum was hoisted out and lowered into the boat, the pirates
tumbled in after it, and, finally, with more profanity mingled with
snatches of sea-songs, which were bellowed forth at the top of their
voices in the style usual with half