Whereas Stevey Todd bided a while, as a cautious man would do, until some decent time had gone by; and then he gets me, as a friend, in ambush inside the cabin window for precaution and testimony, and plants the scornful typist at a distance to take photographs that might be useful, and then he brings Madame Bill to the window.
“Now,” he says to her, “supposing there was a man that we'll call middle-aged, and that might be a cook maybe by profession, for it wouldn't do no harm if we took it he had leanings that way, and if you said he was as good a one as ever stepped into a galley, I wouldn't go so far as to say so myself, nor yet deny it, for Bill had that opinion himself, and he was a man of good judgment on things that had to do with his line, though when his feelings moved him he was apt to put it warm, nor I ain't denying that when his digestion was otherwise, his remarks was sometimes contrary. Now, supposing there was a lady, whose merits I wouldn't nowise try to state, but if you was to say her talents was good, and her weight a hundred and forty, I wouldn't say you was wrong, which I've heard it put that as a Lineal Descendant she was worth climbing the volcano to see, which supposing she complimented it by borrowing that name, it's no harm if she did. Now, supposing those parties was talking of this thing and that, as anybody might do, and, say, they got to talking of the show business maybe, or, say, they happened to mention such a thing as matrimony, now,” says Stevey Todd, “what would be your idea of that last as a subject of conversation between those parties?”
Madame Bill didn't answer the question, though it seemed to me put delicate, but she burst into melodious laughter, and ran away, and the tin-type man, whose natural expression was dislike of his fellow man, he looked disgusted more'n you'd believe, and went away too. Then Stevey Todd put his head through the window, and he says:
“Now, supposing a party acted in such or such a way to one party, which acted another way to another party, what would you say might happen to be her meaning?”
I gave my opinion candid, and truthful. I said, as to Madame Bill, I judged something or other pleased her, and by her behaviour to Flannagan it looked as if there was something then which she hadn't liked, though what it might be in either case was more than I could say, but speaking generally it looked hopeful for Stevey Todd, and I stated that same opinion. Stevey Todd went back to the galley, and it seemed to me the difference between his nature and Flannagan's was something to wonder at and admire, and when I saw Flannagan he seemed to have the same opinion with me, for he says: