to have
something to do; and I have nothing. You might as well talk like the
missionary and tell me to do my duty.

LADY CICELY (quickly). Oh no thank you. I've had quite enough of your
duty, and Howard's duty. Where would you both be now if I'd let you do
it?

BRASSBOUND. We'd have been somewhere, at all events. It seems to me that
now I am nowhere.

LADY CICELY. But aren't you coming back to England with us?

BRASSBOUND. What for?

LADY CICELY. Why, to make the most of your opportunities.

BRASSBOUND. What opportunities?

LADY CICELY. Don't you understand that when you are the nephew of a
great bigwig, and have influential connexions, and good friends among
them, lots of things can be done for you that are never done for
ordinary ship captains?

BRASSBOUND. Ah; but I'm not an aristocrat, you see. And like most poor
men, I'm proud. I don't like being patronized.

LADY CICELY. What is the use of saying that? In my world, which is now
your world--OUR world--getting patronage is the whole art of life. A man
can't have a career without it.

BRASSBOUND. In my world a man can navigate a ship and get his living by
it.

LADY CICELY. Oh, I see you're one of the Idealists--the Impossibilists!
We have them, too, occasionally, in our world. There's only one thing to
be done with them.

BRASSBOUND. What's that?

LADY CICELY. Marry them straight off to some girl with enough money for
them, and plenty of sentiment. That's their fate.

BRASSBOUND. You've spoiled even that chance for me. Do you think I could
look at any ordinary woman after you? You seem to be able to make me
do pretty well what you like; but you can't make me marry anybody but
yourself.

LADY CICELY. Do you know, Captain Paquito, that I've married no less
than seventeen men (Brassbound stares) to other women. And they all
opened the subject by saying that they would never marry anybody but me.

BRASSBOUND. Then I shall be the first man you ever found to stand to his
word.

LADY CICELY (part pleased, part amused, part sympathetic). Do you really
want a wife?

BRASSBOUND. I want a commander. Don't undervalue me: I am a good man
when I have a good leader. I have courage: I have determination: I'm not
a drinker: I can command a schooner and a shore party if I can't command
a ship or an army. When work is put upon me, I turn neither to save my
life nor to fill my pocket. Gordon trusted me; and he never regretted
it. If you trust me, you shan't re