It ain't part of the business." Irreverent as this speech appeared, there was really no trace of such intention in his manner, and his evident profound conviction that his suggestion was practical, and not at all inconsistent with ecclesiastical dignity, would alone have been enough to touch the Padre, had not the stranger's dominant personality already overridden him.

He hesitated.

The stranger seized the opportunity to take his arm, and lead him with the half familiarity of powerful protection to a bench beneath the refectory window.

Taking out his watch again, he put it in the passive hands of the astonished priest, saying, "Time me," cleared his throat, and began:-- "Fourteen years ago there was a ship cruisin' in the Pacific, jest off this range, that was ez nigh on to a Hell afloat as anything rigged kin be.

If a chap managed to dodge the cap'en's belayin-pin for a time, he was bound to be fetched up in the ribs at last by the mate's boots.
There was a chap knocked down the fore hatch with a broken leg in the Gulf, and another jumped overboard off Cape Corrientes, crazy as a loon, along a clip of the head from the cap'en's trumpet.