“O! Menin aeide Thea Peleiadeo Achilleos!” spouted I out, in rapture.
“That ain't high Dutch,” asked he, “is it?”
“No,” said I, proudly. “It is ancient Greek,--the godlike tongue of an immortal race.”
“Immortal rascals!” he broke in. “I was in the fruit trade up in the Levant there, and such scoundrels as these Greek fellows I never met in my life.”
“By what and whom made so?” I exclaimed eagerly. “Can you point to a people in the world who have so long resisted the barbarizing influence of a base oppression? Was there ever a nation so imbued with high civilization as to be enabled for centuries of slavery to preserve the traditions of its greatness? Have we the record of any race but this, who could rise from the slough of degradation to the dignity of a people?”
“You 've been a play-actor, I take it?” asked he, dryly.
“No, sir, never!” replied I, with some indignation.
“Well, then, in the Methody line? You've done a stroke of preaching, I 'll be sworn.”
“You would be perjured in that case, sir,” I rejoined, as haughtily.
“At all events, an auctioneer,” said he, fairly puzzled in his speculations.
“Equally mistaken there,” said I, calmly; “bred in the midst of abundance, nurtured in affluence, and educated with all the solicitous care that a fond parent could bestow--”
“Gammon!” said he, bluntly. “You are one of the swell mob in distress!”
“Is this like distress?” said I, drawing forth my purse in which were seventy-five sovereigns, and handing it to him. “Count over that, and say how just and how generous are your suspicions.”
He gravely took the purse from me, and, stooping down to the binnacle light, counted over the money, scrutinizing carefully the pieces as he went.
“And who is to say this isn't 'swag'?” said he, as he closed the purse.
“The easiest answer to that,” said I, “is, would it be likely for a thief to show his booty, not merely to a stranger, but to a stranger who suspected him?”
“Well, that is something, I confess,” said he, slowly.
“It ought to be more,--it ought to be everything. If distrust were not a debasing sentiment, obstructing the impulses of generosity, and even invading the precincts of justice, you would see far more reason to confide in than to disbelieve me.”