I have always
found I was better off in the abstract, and if this question is going to
be settled in a purely democratic fashion by submitting it to a vote, I'll
vote for any measure which involves leaving them strictly to themselves.
They're nothing but a lot of ghosts anyhow, like ourselves, and we can
pretend we don't see them."
"If that could be, it would be excellent," said Morgan; "but it is
impossible. For a pirate of the Byronic order, my dear Conrad, you are
strangely unversed in the ways of the sex which cheers but not inebriates.
We can no more ignore their presence upon this boat than we can expect
whales to spout kerosene. In the first place, it would be excessively
impolite of us to cut them--to decline to speak to them if they should
address us. We may be pirates, ruffians, cutthroats, but I hope we shall
never forget that we are gentlemen."
"The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, don't you think?"
suggested Conrad. "There's nobody to introduce us, and I can't really see
how we can do otherwise than ignore them. I certainly am not going to
stand on deck and make eyes at them, to try and pick up an acquaintance
with them, even if I am of a Byronic strain."
"You forget," said Kidd, "two essential features of the situation. These
women are at present--or shortly will be, when they realize their
situation--in distress, and a true gentleman may always fly to the rescue
of a distressed female; and, the second point, we shall soon be on the
seas, and I understand that on the fashionable transatlantic lines it is
now considered _de rigueur_ to speak to anybody you choose to.
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