You men are all the same."
"Well, ma'am, since you know so much, you probably know also that I have
sold my pension. How am I to live if I do not turn my hand to work?"
Mrs. Westmacott produced a large registered envelope from beneath the
sheets and tossed it over to the old seaman.
"That excuse won't do. There are your pension papers. Just see if they
are right."
He broke the seal, and out tumbled the very papers which he had made
over to McAdam two days before.
"But what am I to do with these now?" he cried in bewilderment.
"You will put them in a safe place, or get a friend to do so, and, if
you do your duty, you will go to your wife and beg her pardon for having
even for an instant thought of leaving her."
The Admiral passed his hand over his rugged forehead. "This is very good
of you, ma'am" said he, "very good and kind, and I know that you are a
staunch friend, but for all that these papers mean money, and though we
may have been in broken water lately, we are not quite in such straits
as to have to signal to our friends. When we do, ma'am, there's no one
we would look to sooner than to you."
"Don't be ridiculous!" said the widow. "You know nothing whatever about
it, and yet you stand there laying down the law.
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