"Alright, De Mornay, give me one good reason why I shouldn't toss you back over the side, this time with an anchor tied to your cussed hide, you histrionical clapped-out, good-for-nothin' I - don't - know - what ---"

De Mornay looked at him with the kind of regal dignity that is somewhat undermined when one is draped in soaking wet remnants. "One of the benefits of booklearning, my dear Mr. Mate, is that one seldom runs out of colourful language. Miss Green here, though not a scholar, has been known to have a fondness for the works of Walter Scott, and the occasional dip into Wordsworthian sublimities. When crossed with her vast experience of life, she has been known to fumigate cowboys out of their bunkhouses . Isn't that right my dear?"

She looked darkly at him, opened her mouth, and proceeded to desecrate him and his ancestors, individually and with great accuracy, according to the Linnaean system, not omitting references to the implications of the recent Mr. Darwin's hypotheses for his roots and branches. Having completed this task, she turned her attention to the Chief Mate of the Albert Hansell, borrowing the tactics of the precipitous Lord Nelson, to whit, coming in close and bombarding him and his ship and the ship's captain and all passengers, past, present, and future.

This having been done, and the recipients of this set of robust broadsides having relocated the farflung fragments of their bodies, the Mate invited her to the Captain's cabin for a welcome bout of refreshment, which she delicately accepted; and clapped de Mornay in irons, which he, perforce, but with somewhat of a muted delicacy of his own, also accepted.