[Madame Delphine by George W. Cable]@TWC D-Link bookMadame Delphine CHAPTER IV 5/7
Among another people, reared under wiser care and with better companions, how different might he not have been! How can _we_ speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from that name ?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his speech to English.
"A lady sez to me to-day: 'Pere Jerome, 'ow dat is a dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Aint it ?' 'Ah, Madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I'ope de good God will fo'give me an' you fo' dat!'" Jean Thompson answered quickly: "You should not have let her say that." "_Mais_, fo' w'y ?" "Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more to do what you can to shield his reputation.
You should have said,"-- the attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic of Carthagena!'" "_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his brother-in-law, the priest, laughed. "Why not ?" demanded Thompson. "Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand." Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else, when Pere Jerome spoke. "I will tell you what I could have said.
I could have said: 'Madame, yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him.
He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God will mek it a _mo' terrible_ fo' dat man, oohever he is, w'at put 'at light out!'" "But how do you know he is a pirate ?" demanded Thompson, aggressively. "How do we know ?" said the little priest, returning to French.
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