evil he will evolve into in another century or
two. Meanwhile he presents himself to Lady Cicely as a blunt sailor who
has something to say to her concerning her conduct which he wishes to
put politely, as becomes an officer addressing a lady, but also with an
emphatically implied rebuke, as an American addressing an English person
who has taken a liberty.

LADY CICELY (as he enters). So glad you've come, Captain Kearney.

KEARNEY (coming between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely). When we parted
yesterday ahfternoon, Lady Waynflete, I was unaware that in the
course of your visit to my ship you had entirely altered the sleeping
arrangements of my stokers. I thahnk you. As captain of the ship, I
am customairily cawnsulted before the orders of English visitors are
carried out; but as your alterations appear to cawndooce to the comfort
of the men, I have not interfered with them.

LADY CICELY. How clever of you to find out! I believe you know every
bolt in that ship.

Kearney softens perceptibly.

SIR HOWARD. I am really very sorry that my sister-in-law has taken so
serious a liberty, Captain Kearney. It is a mania of hers--simply a
mania. Why did your men pay any attention to her?

KEARNEY (with gravely dissembled humor). Well, I ahsked that question
too. I said, Why did you obey that lady's orders instead of waiting for
mine? They said they didn't see exactly how they could refuse. I ahsked
whether they cawnsidered that discipline. They said, Well, sir, will you
talk to the lady yourself next time?

LADY CICELY. I'm so sorry. But you know, Captain, the one thing that one
misses on board a man-of-war is a woman.

KEARNEY. We often feel that deprivation verry keenly, Lady Waynflete.

LADY CICELY. My uncle is first Lord of the Admiralty; and I am always
telling him what a scandal it is that an English captain should be
forbidden to take his wife on board to look after the ship.

KEARNEY. Stranger still, Lady Waynflete, he is not forbidden to take any
other lady. Yours is an extraordinairy country--to an Amerrican.

LADY CICELY. But it's most serious, Captain. The poor men go melancholy
mad, and ram each other's ships and do all sorts of things.

SIR HOWARD. Cicely: I beg you will not talk nonsense to Captain Kearney.
Your ideas on some subjects are really hardly decorous.

LADY CICELY (to Kearney). That's what English people are like, Captain
Kearney. They won't hear of anything concerning you poor sailors except
Ne