This idea was, to some extent,
crystallized by the youngest Miss Jones in the exclamation, "Oh,
how nice!"
"It was, of course, many years ago, when I was quite a lad."
We all murmured "Certainly," as if piracy were a natural expression
of the exuberance of youth.
"I ought, perhaps, explain the circumstances that led me into this
way of life."
Here Legrande, a courteous attache of the Patagonian legation,
interposed in French and an excess of politeness, "that it was not
of a necessity," a statement to which his English neighbor
hurriedly responded, "Oui, oui."
"There ess a boke," he continued, in a well-bred, rapid whisper,
"from Captain Canot,--a Frenchman,--most eenteresting--he was--oh,
a fine man of education--and what you call a 'slavair,'" but here
he was quietly nudged into respectful silence.
"I ran away from home," continued our host. He paused, and then
added, appealingly, to the two distinguished foreigners present: "I
do not know if I can make you understand that this is a peculiarly
American predilection.
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